Bontuyan ambush: Will family of slain policeman receive benefits?

The wake of Police Captain Delfin Bontuyan. | CDN Digital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) Regional Internal Affairs Service (RIAS) said that the investigation of Police Captain Delfin Bontuyan’s death will be vital in determining whether his family will receive benefits or not.

According the chief of the Investigation and Intelligence Division of the RIAS-7, lawyer Prince Rayner Robles, in order for Bontuyan’s family to get the benefits accorded to policemen who died in duty, the policeman must be in active service and his death must also be within the line of duty.

Bontuyan was shot dead by four unknown assailants on board two motorcycles on Tuesday afternoon, May 21, 2019, near the intersection of St. John Paul II Avenue Extension and A. Soriano Street in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City.

Read more: Christine Bontuyan to police: “Do your job and find out who did this to my father”

Robles said that it is essential that Bontuyan must be proven to have attended the hearing at the Regional Trial Court in Cebu City prior to his death. It is also substantial to prove that his death was motivated by personal grudge brought by his duty as a police officer.

The final decision, though, will lie on the Board formed by the mother region of Bontuyan in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Read more: Policeman ambushed near Mabolo Police Station

Robles said that this Board is tasked to identify if a slain policeman should receive the benefits of dying in the line of duty.

If proven he was killed in the line of duty, his family will receive monetary benefits and the slain policeman will get an honored burial.

Read more: PRO-7 RIAS: Bontuyan has records of six counts of dishonesty cases filed in Ombudsman

However, it is most likely that whatever the decision of the board will be, the family will still receive the monetary equivalent to the remaining leave credits of Bontuyan. /bmjo