WHEN SPO1 Adonis Dumpit, with two other former police bodyguards of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, was banished to Bohol in August 2016, the “Bohol Tribune” published speculations that Dumpit was on a “special mission” there.
The paper described Dumpit as Cebu City’s “most dreaded policeman,” a “near-perfect” sharpshooter, and “alleged to be behind the slaughter of hardened criminals in Cebu.”
Senior Supt. Dennis Agustin, then of PNP 7 Regional Directorate Staff, allayed the worry of Boholanos, partly stoked by the Tribune story. Agustin, Bohol provincial commander from 2013 to 2016, was profuse in praising Dumpit: “hardworking,” “mabait na alagad ng batas” and “an icon” in law enforcement.
His two faces
You have two faces of Dumpit right there. One was that of an alleged vigilante cop who used shooting prowess to eliminate criminals. The other was that of a “dedicated” lawman who had “done a lot” in the war on crime.
Either face could be seen or feared. People knew Dumpit was convicted of murdering in 2004 a young robbery suspect whom he allegedly chased and shot dead. People knew Dumpit was jailed for six years, from 2010 when he surrendered until he was granted bail just after the May 2016 elections.
And a third
The third face, which people could not see or fear-- because they had no inkling of it -- was that of a “high-level drug pusher and protector.”
NBI agents and Tagbilaran police killed Dumpit in an alleged shootout as he was motoring on the Dagohoy circumferential road in Barangay San Isidro from Cabawan district in Tagbilaran City. He allegedly had 15 packs of shabu with him.
Is it trumped-up?
The illegal drugs rap is just out of whack with the image many people had of the man. He was a cop who was convicted of murdering a robbery suspect but he served time in jail. Dumpit was reinstated to the service after his administrative charge was dropped. He was granted bail pending appeal of the homicide conviction. But no trace or hint that he was into drugs.
Dumpit’s defenders might defend him and allege he was set up and the charge trumped up. Which should prod NBI and the police to come up with hard evidence, not just some list or matrix.
Did Tomas know?
The inevitable question that needs quick answer is how much Mayor Tomas knew or suspected about Dumpit’s alleged drug link. The mayor had been intimate with Dumpit: the cop even lived in his house shortly after his release, when Tomas said he feared Dumpit’s enemies might seek revenge.
The mayor’s critics would tease that after all Tomas was also accused of getting bribe money from a self-confessed drug lord. But association or friendship won’t stand as evidence in the prosecutor’s office or the court, as it did not when Tomas and former mayor Mike Rama were accused of profiting from drugs.
Bombshell
Did Dumpit really have one facet of his life that was hidden from the public? No story or even rumor about his alleged ties with illegal drugs; one only heard about his having dated a woman prosecutor and it was not illegal. And Tomas was clueless?
The drug bombshell is dropped from the sky, boom and wham, to explain why law enforcers killed one of their own. But then, didn’t they also kill last June 10 in Tipolo, Mandaue City, another cop, Senior Insp. Raymond Hortezuela of Cebu but assigned in Negros Oriental? Two cops down, two shootouts, two self-defense claims in 17 days.