APPEAL FOR JUSTICE. Yvonne Vargas, mother of slain jail officer Jayvee Jason Vargas, calls on President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Leni Robredo to help her family attain justice, in a media interview at the Negros Press Club office in Bacolod City on Monday afternoon (Nov. 11, 2019). Her son was killed in an ambush on the way home on Friday night. (PNA photo by Nanette L. Guadalquiver)
BACOLOD CITY -- The Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO) is looking into four angles, including illegal drugs, in the killing of Jail Officer 1 Jayvee Jason Vargas just before midnight on Friday in Barangay Cabug here.
Lt. Col. Ariel Pico, BCPO public information officer, on Monday said the investigation of Police Station 9 is ongoing and persons of interest have already been identified.
Investigators are looking into the victim’s possible link to illegal drugs and the possibility that he was killed because of his work with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).
Also being considered is business angle, which has something to do with the cock breeding farm in Murcia town owned by the victim and his father, retired Senior Jail Officer 2 Joeby Vargas. The fourth angle is personal grudge of someone who wanted to have Vargas killed.
“The assailants really intended to kill JO1 Vargas. Based on the bullets found inside the vehicle, Vargas who was driving was really the target,” Pico said.
Scene of the crime investigators found almost 200 casings of ammunition from M16 and M14 rifles, and 9mm and .45-caliber pistols.
On Monday afternoon, the slain jailer’s mother, Yvonne, called for justice as she maintained that her 28-year-old son was innocent of any crime.
“To President (Rodrigo) Duterte and Vice President (Leni Robredo). Our family is asking for your help to attain justice for our son. He is innocent. This is so unfair and very painful to us,” she said in a media interview at the Negros Press Club office.
Vargas' mother, a teacher at Negros Occidental High School here, added that she could not even think of any reason why anyone would want to kill her son.
The slain jail officer, a personnel of Metro Bacolod District Jail in Barangay Handumanan, was supposed to be transferred to the BJMP-Western Visayas regional office in Iloilo City effective Monday.
In April this year, there was already an attempt to kill Vargas while he was also driving, then with his sister on board a pick-up truck.
During the ambush on Friday night, Vargas was driving a white Mitsubishi Strada on the way home to neighboring Barangay Handumanan, after picking up his father and three relatives from a cockpit in Barangay Pahanocoy.
A blue Toyota Innova and two motorcycles tailed them. The drivers of the motorcycles blocked his pick-up truck as unidentified armed men came out of the other vehicle and fired at them.
A Toyota Hilux and another motorcycle then arrived, carrying more armed men, who also shot at Vargas’ group.
As he was trying to get away, the victim’s vehicle hit a piggery stall, where his father and three relatives sought shelter.
Vargas, who sustained injuries, died immediately. (PNA)
