BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – This is a story about questions and descriptions.
For now.
Over the past days, various sources had reached out to DNX with their own stories about Eric Alcosaba, the first victim of a public execution slain on a busy highway spot less than a kilometer away from the city government center, six minutes away from a police headquarters.
There can be no conclusions, full or half-drawn at this point as the government’s anti-drug war rages on.
First the questions.
Why was Eric Alcosaba unarmed on the day he was murdered?
What made him drive to McDonald’s East around 3pm last Saturday?
Who was he waiting for?
Who implicated him as a drug protector?
Why do some sources privy to his work as a policeman call him “the tip of the spear?”
Who was his so-called “handler?”
How were the killers able to get close to him?
Why did his killers make sure he was dead?
Who wanted him dead?
Was he killed because he was a loose end and could lead to something damning?
A dirty secret, perhaps?
Now the descriptions.
Tight groupings.
This was how one source close to Alcosaba described his marksmanship skills.
“He works best with a pistol,” a professional who “worked” with Alcosaba on some projects told this reporter.
Another, one of the few friends of Alcosaba outside the police force, described him as “tactical,” one who knows how to do a “project.”
“He first identifies ingress and egress,” the source said.
In simple terms, he knows how to find his “way in and out.”
As the police continue to investigate the murder, details about Alcosaba’s service record have yet to be released.
What DNX knows so far are the following:
- prior to his reassignment to Police Station 7 under the Bacolod City Police Office, Alcosaba was an operative of the City Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (CAIDSOTF) in 2016, police spokesman Ariel Pico confirmed to DNX.
The CAIDSOTF was renamed Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) in 2017 under the Duterte administration that implemented an intensified drug war through Campaign Plan Double Barrel, the components of which are Oplan Tokhang and Oplan HVT.
The PNP announced in March 2017 that only personnel “of unsullied service reputation, unblemished record, and a character beyond suspicion” were minimum requirements for assignment in the DEU.
In that same month and year, confessed drug syndicate member Ricky Serenio implicated Alcosaba as among police officers who have been receiving money from the Berya drug group. (READ also:
Serenio signed a supplemental affidavit in which he named Alcosaba, then Negros Occidental Provincial Police chief, Senior Supt. William Senoron; Cadiz City chief, Supt. Jose Edel Manzano; Bacolod Police Office’s Supt. Placido Gentoleo, Supt. Antonietto Canete of PIO-NIR; and Chief Insp. Edison Garcia of the Regional Intelligence Division.
A police colonel told DNX Alcosaba might not have been absorbed into the DEU after Serenio implicated him.
- At least two friends of Alcosaba, both civilians, told DNX he did not go to his assignment in Mindanao. “He felt really bad,” one of them said, “as if his sacrifices for the PNP were forgotten.”
Tomorrow: Ronin patrolman?
