Slain Cebu police captain honored
Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Fri, 31 May 2019 08:52:51 +0000
FAMILY, friends and relatives of slain Police Captain Delfin Bontuyan say goodbye for the last time as he is laid to rest on May, Friday. He was given a 21-gun salute and his family received the Philippine flag. (Juan Carlo de Vela)
CEBU CITY— Hundreds bade goodbye to a policeman who was gunned down by motorcycle-riding assailants in a busy street here.
Police Capt. Delfin Bontuyan was laid to rest on Thursday at the Angelicum Garden of Angels in Barangay Canduman, Mandaue City, where he was accorded with a 21-gun salute by fellow policemen.
Bontuyan, 55, had just attended a court hearing when he was killed by four gunmen while he was driving a motorcycle at an intersection in Barangay Mabolo last May 21.
Bontuyan was assigned in Cebu City for most of his career. He was transferred to Mindanao after he was implicated in illegal drug activities.
Some city officials, led by outgoing mayor Tomas Osmeña, attended the Requiem Mass at the San Isidro Parish.
The policeman’s 23-year-old daughter Christine Claire delivered a tearful eulogy where she recalled how doting her father was.
“All you ever wanted was for me to have a good life. As I had you by my side growing up, everything seemed to be just really within reach. I was beyond contented with the life I lived. My world was very comfortable because you did everything you can to make sure I never got to taste the bitterness you had to go through while you were my age,” Christine said.
Christine saw her father as an accomplished police officer but he had been wanting to achieve what he described as his life’s greatest accomplishment and that to see her become a lawyer.
“You always talked about how over 50 years in your life, your only wish was to see me succeed and become the lawyer I dreamed of becoming. “Anak, kung ma lawyer naka, pwede nako mamatay.” This is your usual line. I always hated that line and even lightly hit you on your arm each time you said it because I refuse to acknowledge the idea that I would be without you or without Mama,” she said.
Christine vowed to fulfill her father’s dream as she is set to graduate as a law student next year.
Most of those who sympathized with the Bontuyans wore white shirts with printed words “no retreat, no surrender”.
Christine said “no retreat, no surrender” was his father’s mantra and that even on that fateful day, her father showed he was a fighter.
“Even until the end, you were a fighter Papa. 11 bullets to you, 4 to your head, 7 seven to your body. You were attacked from behind by more than one assailant. This goes to show that they had to outnumber you to go against you and they had to attack you from behind because they could not afford to attack you upfront,” said Christine.
The elder Bontuyan slumped on a hood of a taxi after he was repeatedly shot.
Christine also lashed at his father’s killers, who remain unidentified.
“To whoever did this to my Papa, you are cowards and failures. You outnumbered and rained my father with bullets from behind, without him putting up even the slightest defense but still you did not manage to make him fall. You left him at the crime scene, still standing up. You are cowards and failures and you should be ashamed of yourself,” she said. (Calvin D. Cordova)