BY CZARINA NICOLE ONG KI * AARON RECUENCO
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has dispatched a team to investigate the brutal killing of 27-year-old Vincent Adia, an alleged drug suspect, inside a hospital in Angono, Rizal last Wednesday.
The CHR said a team of probers from its Region IV office has been tapped to look into the death of Adia who was reportedly shot twice by a gunman inside the Rizal Provincial Hospital’s Angono Annex where he was being treated for gunshot wounds.
Around 4 a.m. on November 4, Adia was already shot three times and was left to die in the gutter with a cardboard sign that declared him a “pusher.”
Adia was then rushed to the hospital, where he was revived and stabilized. However, he was killed just a few hours after.
Lawyer Jacqueline de Guia, CHR spokesperson, said that the “brazenness” of Adia’s killing inside the hospital is “utterly reprehensible” because hospitals are facilities where the sick and wounded are supposed to be treated and saved.
“Amid the suffering in this period of pandemic, it is disheartening that extra-judicial killings (EJKs) still persist,” she said.
“We harp again our repeated plea to the government to concretely address the continuing atrocities and vigilante killings,” continued de Guia.
“With the government’s recent expression of openness to cooperate with international mechanisms in improving the human rights situation in the country, we hope and expect that cases of extrajudicial killings will be truly curbed and tackled with utmost urgency.”
PNP INVESTIGATES
General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), has also ordered a thorough investigation on the killing of the alleged drug suspect.
“We are investigating the killing,” said Cascolan when asked to comment on the death of Adia.
The death of Adia was reported as a case of shooting incident at around 3:30 a.m. in Barangay San Isidro in Angono town.
The police report stated that when the police went to the crime scene, Adia was already taken to the hospital.
But in a Twitter thread post of a witness to the incident, a netizen who appeared to be a hospital staff, narrated that they attended to a man who looked like a victim of extrajudicial killing.
Despite three bullet wounds in the head, medical personnel of the hospital were able to revive Adia who became “fully conscious and coherent.”
VICTIM NAMED ATTACKER
The Twitter user said that they were able to get some details from the victim who claimed that he wrote the name of his attacker on a piece of paper which suddenly went missing.
The Twitter user also narrated that while they were getting information from the victim, several men who introduced themselves as policemen appeared and tried to take custody of the victim.
The cops reportedly told the hospital staff that the victim may need to be transferred to a bigger hospital.
The alleged cops were denied custody of the victim because of his unstable condition and the absence of arrest warrant.
A few hours later, an unidentified man barged inside the hospital and shot Adia dead. It happened at around 11:40 a.m. on Wednesday.
The Twitter posts were already made private even as the account owner condemned extrajudicial killings which have been linked to the government’s anti-drug war.
