Batomalaque’s widow will no longer seek CHR’s help

Just leave him in peace.

The wife of slain policeman, PO2 Melchizedek Batomalaque said she would no longer seek the assistance of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to investigate the brutal slaying of her husband and would instead just want him to be buried in peace.

Katherine Batomalaque, 37, in an interview at their house in Barangay Daanlungsod, Toledo City said that she is no longer interested in asking assistance from the rights group.

She said she would instead just let the police solve her husband’s killing because it was their job to solve crimes.

Batomalaque, 37, was shot dead on June 19 by still unidentified assailants on board a motorcycle.

The policeman went outside of their residence in Toledo City to buy something at past 6 p.m. when the suspects drove by and shot him several times in his head and body.

Cebu Provincial Police Office Director Senior Supt. Manuel Abrugena said that they are currently coordinating with the Police Regional Office – Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (PRO-ARRM) to know what Batomalaque’s activities were before he left for Cebu.

Abrugena said that although they are still looking for witnesses, they are not discounting the possibility that the assailants were also involved in illegal drugs.

In an earlier interview, Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO–7) Chief Supt. Debold Sinas tagged Batomalaque as a “narco-cop.”

The accusation though, was vehemently denied by the policeman’s widow who claimed that if indeed her husband was in the illegal drug trade, they would have been living a luxurious life.

According to her, they were already buried in debt. In fact she said, it was her sister who is the one shouldering the expenses of her husband’s wake and impending burial.
Katherine said she supports her husband by doing tutorial work. The couple had two sons in grades 7 and 10.

She claimed that while her husband was assigned in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), he never received his pay from January to April. His salary for May and June were also not yet released.

PO2 Batomalaque went home from Mindanao to attend a hearing of a drug suspect he arrested when he was still a member of the Toledo City Police Station, said Katherine.

The time when he was killed, Katherine said her husband was on his way to buy something and pick up their kids from school.

She said that she and her husband have been planning to apply for a loan to buy a car of their own. Now that he’s no longer around, she vowed to work extra hard to fulfill that dream.

PO2 Batomalaque would have turned 38 this August. /with STC Intern Jaive Ria Agbon