For a person like Sherwin Bautista, who often managed to get off the hook in drug charges and illegal possession of firearms, investigators found the angle on drugs as prominent from other possible factors in his broad daylight murder Thursday last week, another handiwork of riding in tandem.
Bautista had just been released from Tagbilaran City Rehabilitation and Detention Center in May this year upon his acquittal from drug charges on a technicality.
His case on illegal possession of firearms is still pending in court, though, but he had been out on bail for such.
Bautista reportedly had been receiving death threats and for which, had been advised by friends that he would be safer in detention, but he posted bail for the illegal possession of firearms case.
Another angle that investigators look into is personal grudge as he had reportedly engaged in a shooting incident with another drug personality in a town in Bohol.
The drug personality whom he had engaged in a gunfight has been described by police investigators as a no-nonsense killer.
The composite team of the city police, Provincial Intelligence Branch, and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group seized 300 grams of shabu placed in four large packs allegedly in plain view inside Bautista’s residence in barangay Tiptip, Tagbilaran City on February 13, 2014 in the course of implementing a search warrant for illegal possession of firearms.
On technicality, the charges related to the confiscation of the packs of shabu were dismissed in May.
During the police operation, the raiding team, led by Police Provincial Director Dennis Agustin, recovered a caliber .45 pistol from Bautista Navarra vehicle, then a Magnum 22 from his room, for which the suspect has no document for. They also recovered two magazines of ammunitions for armalite, several ammunitions for a caliber .45 pistol and paraphernalia for repacking of shabu.
Since his detention for the cases filed based on the raid, Bautista had allegedly incurred delinquency in the remittance of supposed sale from drugs as the stock he was supposed to dispose was already confiscated by authorities.
Bautista was actually out on bail when arrested again in the 2014 raid.
Bautista had earlier been implicated in a drug case about three year ahead of the 2014 raid after being caught in a buy-bust operation in Loon.
Bautista’s arrest during a fiesta activity in Loon in September 2011 sparked the rift between the PDEA and the police, though this had been denied by representative of both government agencies.
He once figured as the police asset that led to the arrest of a PDEA agent in several test buy operations in 2011 and earlier.
His arrest in Loon followed about a month after the arrest of a PDEA agent.
While the PDEA agent he testified against was acquitted by court several months later, Bautista had also posted bail for his own case after the PDEA failed to disprove the contention that their biggest catch—that was Bautista- -was questionable.
This was how Bautista’s legal counsel then justified the basis for having been allowed to post bail on the drug case filed based on a buy-bust operation in Loon that yielded 12 grams of shabu.
Judge Pablo Magdoza of RTC Branch 48 earlier allowed Bautista to post bail on grounds of weak evidence.
According to reports, Bautista had been an asset of the PDEA in the past, but later became an asset of the police.
Bautista’s camp, for the previous case, maintained that there was no buy-bust and reiterated the loopholes seen in the operation and the shabu allegedly bought from Bautista were planted.
The alleged buy-bust operation was conducted nearby Holy Name Funeral Homes about a block away from where he was arrested while about to board his motorcycle for the motocross competition on September 8, 2011.
Bautista’s camp also found it unlikely for the PDEA team, backed up by the 2nd Special Forces Battalion, to wait for 15-20 or 30 minutes before arresting the person who allegedly sold a volume of shabu to a poseur-buyer.
END OF THE ROAD
At around 7 a.m. on July 7, the 43-year-old Bautista had just dropped off his live-in partner, Alma Manlangit, and their daughter to school and was already leaving the school premises on board his motorcycle when the riding in tandem followed him, with the back-rider firing the gun.
Bautista was already hit when he got off from his motorcycle and managed to run for about 10 meters, but the back-rider also got off from the motorcycle he was riding and chased Bautista.
When already close to Bautista, the gunman shot him several times, hitting his head and chest.
The gunman immediately went back to the motorcycle where his companion was waiting and they fled.
Sherwin Bautista’s live-in partner rushed to the area to check what the burst of gunfire was all about and found him already bathing in his own blood on the road at the corner of Tiptip Elementary School in front of the barangay hall.
The teachers and pupils were on the school grounds for the flag raising ceremony when they heard the burst of gunfire.
City chief of police, Supt. George Vale, said Bautista was among the alleged top drug personalities in the province and had been tagged as Level 1 druglord in Bohol.
Vale said Bautista allegedly operated in the towns of Inabanga, Buenavista, Clarin, Loon, Tubigon, Calape, Maribojoc, Panglao, Guindulman, Jagna and Tagbilaran City.
A number of drug personalities who had been arrested in subsequent police operations since 2014 had been tagged as his associates.