Widow calls on Congress to investigate Rapiz’s death

A police investigator inspects the site where Superintendent Santiago Ylanan Rapiz, a resident of Bacolod City, was killed in a shootout with operatives of the Philippine National Police’s Counter Intelligence Task Force and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency on Nov. 5, 2018 in Dipolog City. PHOTO FROM POLICE REGIONAL OFFICE-9 PIO

BACOLOD City – The wife of the slain Senior Superintendent Santiago Rapiz wants Congress to investigate her husband’s death.

Michelle Rapiz insisted during a news conference Saturday that her husband was not involved in illegal drug activities.

She and their family lawyer Atty. Tranquilino Gale questioned the conduct of the operation against Rapiz, stressing that it would be implausible for a high-ranking officer like him to sell drugs just like in a “sari-sari (variety) store.”

On the evening of Nov. 5, Rapiz was killed during a drug buy-bust operation conducted by the police’s Counter-Intelligence Task Force and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency inside a school campus in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte.

Michelle claimed that, during the operation, the lights at the Andres Bonifacio College in Dipolog City were switched off and the players at the basketball court where Rapiz was playing were not allowed to leave.

The widow also insisted that the 25 grams of suspected shabu recovered from Rapiz’s vehicle was “planted.”

She further claimed that the police have been keeping her husband’s mobile phone and other personal effects. She believes messages from the cellphone could prove Rapiz’s innocence.

Rapiz handled a total of 87 drug-related cases in his career as a police officer, likely angering prominent crime syndicates, Michelle said.

Earlier the New People’s Army condemned the killing of Rapiz and called on the Philippine National Police to investigated operation.

As far as they know Rapiz has not had any criminal record in Negros and was not involved in the sale or use of illegal drugs, said Ka JB Regalado, spokesman for the NPA’s Leonardo Panaligan Command.

According to Regalado, Rapiz was known to them as an athletic and soft-spoken police officer with a proven track record in the service.

Similarly the NPA dismissed claims that Rapiz was a “narco cop,” as tagged by President Rodrigo Duterte. The rebels said the slain officer was a “thorn to the side” of crime syndicates in Negros.

“Rapiz only became a part of the 13,000 victims of ‘Oplan Tokhang’ under the Duterte regime,” Regalado said.

The NPA believes Rapiz’s reassignment was facilitated by high-ranking police officials with links to drug syndicates in Negros Occidental.

Rapiz, 54, was a former station chief in Escalante City and Cadiz City in Negros Occidental, and head of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office and the Bacolod City Police Office’s Police-Community Relations offices.

A resident of Barangay Taculing, Bacolod City, Rapiz was one of seven officers in Negros reassigned to the Police Regional Office 9 for being “drug protectors,” according to an affidavit of self-confessed Berya drug group bagman Ricky Serenio./PN

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