PO2 Evie Espina was a good man and an aggressive operative when it came to anti-illegal drug operations.

This was how his older brother, SPO1 Mikee Espina, remembered the slain police officer who was laid to his final rest in a cemetery in Talisay City yesterday afternoon.

“I was the one who encouraged him to be a police officer. But what’s done is done and I hope that I will be re-assigned here in Central Visayas so I can continue the battle against drugs. To give justice to his death,” Mikee said.

Evie is survived by his wife Marilyn and their six children.

Mikee said that he hopes President Rodrigo Duterte will help Evie’s children, especially with their schooling.

The requiem was held at the Archdiocesan Shrine of Sta.Teresa de Avila.

In his homily, Fr. Filomeno Ybañez Jr. said he had known Evie for a long time. “He was still a child, just wearing shorts,” he said.

Ybañez reminded Evie’s children to support their mother after their father’s death.

Evie, who was an operative for the Minglanilla Drug Enforcement Unit, was killed during a drug bust against Jovilio Franza, a suspected drug pusher and gun-for-hire who was also shot and killed by police in Barangay Tulay last Monday.

Present during the burial were Cebu Provincial Police Office Director Senior Supt. Edgar Allan Okubo; Provincial Intelligence Branch Chief Rene Kyamco, former Minglanilla chief; Supt. Dexter Calacar; and the current chief, Chief Insp. Vernino Noserale. (JOB)