A KIND and hardworking policeman is how the former chief of the Provincial Intelligence Branch of the Cebu Police Provincial Office (CPPO), Police Lt. Col. Joie Pacito Yape Jr., will be remembered.

Yape was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Cebu City last Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019.

In 2017, he was assigned to head the intelligence section of Cebu’s provincial police amid its relentless campaign against illegal drugs.

In September 2017, he persuaded known hitmen in Ronda town to surrender and give up their firearms. Among those who surrendered was Jerrick Torres, who was said to have been involved in shooting incidents in Barangay Malalay in that town.

While chief of the Ronda police station, Yape visited all the barangay captains in the town and persuaded them to surrender their unlicensed firearms.

More than 5,000 unlicensed firearms were surrendered to the police station.

Yape preserved the peace and order in the town before the ambush-killing of its mayor, Mariano Blanco III, in September 2018.

Yape led the team that arrested former Medellin mayor Ricardo Ramirez for illegal possession of firearms and drug paraphernalia in July 2017 on the strength of a search warrant issued by the Talisay City Regional Trial Court.

On Sept. 2, 2017, Yape also arrested hitman Jinnefer Mercader, captain of Barangay Lugo in Borbon town.

Mercader confessed to Yape that government officials called on him if they wanted someone killed.

On Jan. 16, 2019, Yape was assigned to the Calbayog City Police Office in the province of Leyte. He was recently transferred to the Internal Affairs Service in Camp Crame where was an investigator.

He was a trusted source who came to Cebu to attend a hearing on his case relating to his time as chief of the Provincial Intelligence Branch of the CPPO. (AYB)