Whether it’s suicide or not, cop’s wife to receive benefits

Casiban’s wife seeks help in release of death benefits, suspects husband was killed

The family of PO2 Ryan Casiban would receive death benefits of a police officer from the Philippine National Police (PNP) even if the investigation on his death would turn out that he committed suicide.

Senior Insp. Zenaido Pastorfide, former homicide section chief and now traffic division chief of Lapu-Lapu City, told Cebu Daily News when asked if a police officer, who committed suicide, would forfeit his death benefits.

Whether the death of a police officer was a suicide, accidental, murder or homicide, he could have the benefits from the PNP, said Pastorfide.

He, however, said that a police officer if he committed suicide would only maybe not claim his insurance.

The death benefits that a family will receive from the PNP included the burial expenses equivalent to three month’s pay and a pension equivalent to 80 percent of the salary of the deceased.

Chona Casiban, wife of the deceased PO2 Casiban, told CDN in an interview yesterday at the wake of her husband at their home in Sitio Masiwa in Barangay Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City, that she was hoping that the government could help release her husband’s benefits.

She said with the way things were going she did not know how she could sustain the family needs and the studies of their four children, whose youngest is 6 years old and the eldest at 14 years old.

She said that the family was shouldering the downpayment of the casket, funeral and hospital fees and the burial place. Casiban will be buried on Wednesday at the Mactan Memorial Garden in Barangay Marigondon.

Chona Casiban reiterated her suspicion that her husband did not commit suicide but was murdered.

“We suspect that somebody really killed him and the killer wanted to make it look like he committed suicide because there are indications that he was tortured,” said Chona Casiban in Cebuano.

Based on police report when PO2 Casiban’s body was found last Friday evening (Aug. 12), some of his toes were already missing. Police initial investigation however could not determine if this was an indication of torture because Casiban’s body was already in a state of decomposition.

Casiban’s colleagues in the Cordova police station earlier said they believed that Casiban committed suicide because his name was linked to illegal drugs.

But Senior Insp. Alcon Escosura, Lapu-Lapu City homicide section chief, said yesterday that they did not yet have the autopsy results of Casiban’s body, and they would inform the family once they would receive it.

Escosura also said that if there was foul play in Casiban’s death, then they would investigate his death and invite PO3 Jonathan Tajanlangit, whom Casiban allegedly named as the person who threatened him.

Casiban named Tajanlangit during a phone call he made before he went missing on Aug. 10 to to Senior Insp. Zosimo Jabas Jr., the town’s former police chief.

Yesterday, Senior Insp. Jomar Medil, current Cordova police chief, said he already met with Tajanlangit, who denied all the allegations against him.

Medil said that Tajanlangit told him that he and Casiban were friends, and he was sorry for his untimely death.