by Miriam G. Desacada
TACLOBAN CITY–Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry “Regardless of What” Battalion (3IB) on April 29 found and recovered the buried body of Jaime Asinas, a kagawad (councilman) of Barangay San Jose, Las Navas, Northern Samar who was reported missing since last year.
On 9th of July 2022, Asinas was reported to have been abducted by the NPA terrorists at Barangay Epaw in the same town for undetermined reason. Since then he was declared missing and was believed to have been killed by his abductors.
Only recently, a certain Alfredo “alias Lawin” Cocoya, a former member of the terrorists regional force, tipped off the government that Asinas was already dead and provided information on where the slain barangay official was buried.
This prompted the dispatchment of 3ID troops, led by Captain Vivencio Layaog, to the location of the burial site. They were joined by operatives of the 2nd Northern Samar Provincial Mobile Force Company, led by P/Corporal Reynaldo Pineda Jr., who helped in the recovery of the kagawad’s body.
The cadaver of the kagawad was positively identified by his family and relatives based on the clothes and boots he wore the last time he was seen before the abduction.
According to the family, the kagawad was abducted because he refused to heed the terrorists’ demand for him to use the Barangay’s Internal Revenue Allotment (BIRA) to support the group’s financial needs. He was even suspected to be an informant of the 20th Infantry Battalion, based in Las Navas.
A witness, identified only as alias Bayot, narrated that Asinas, before he was brutally killed, was forced to dig up his own grave using only a piece of wood. Then he was tied up and was interrogated on who was his “handler” in government. Asinas however kept silent thus he was shot in the head with an M16 rifle. Before the terrorists buried him, they stabbed him first many times in the body.
Jelly, widow of the kagawad, was enraged upon hearing the barbaric way of killing by the terrorists. She said: “Masama ang loob namin … sa nangyaring pagpatay sa asawa ko. Pinatay nalang sana nila sa barangay mismo at hindi na dinala pa sa ibang lugar. …Hindi makatao ang ginawa nilang pagpatay sa asawa ko.”
The 3IB troops, currently based at San Jorge in Samar, were dispatched to the province from its mother unit, the 7th Infantry “Kaugnay” Division in Nueva Ecija. They were intended as a reinforcement of the government troops in Eastern Visayas as augmentation force during the elections last year.
Lieutenant Colonel Isidro Vicente, commander of the 3ID, condemned the brutal killing of the kagawad by the terrorists, but urged the latter to yield themselves for good.
“It only shows the true faces of NPA terrorists … who continuously violate the law (international, local and humanitarian law). We still call for those victims of this communist terrorist ideology to lay down their arms and live a normal life as all Filipinos should do,” he said. —Miriam G. Desacada