The police chief of Cebu City, Police Col. Gemma Vinluan, was temporarily removed from her post yesterday to make way for the investigation into the death of Clarin town Mayor David Navarro, a high-ranking Philippine National Police (PNP) officer announced today.
Police Brig. Gen. Valeriano de Leon, Central Visayas police chief, said in a statement that her temporary removal was done to “make her available [in] the investigation being conducted.” Vinluan said she was willing to be investigated in connection to the case, ABS-CBN News reports.
Vinluan’s removal comes after President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that he believed that Cebu City police may have had a role in Navarro’s death. He then ordered the PNP to cease investigating Navarro’s death and to turn it over to the National Bureau of Investigation.
De Leon, meanwhile, said the president’s order for the PNP to abandon the case was a welcome development that will spare them from any suspicions of whitewash, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
Navarro was ambushed while he was being transported by the police to the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office for inquest proceedings after he was charged for allegedly beating up a masseur. Several masked men stopped his van, ordered him to get out, then shot him dead. None of the cops who were also in the van with Navarro were killed, although some were injured in the attack.
While Duterte said Navarro was his supporter, the mayor’s name appeared in two of the government’s narco-lists: Duterte’s first, in 2016, and another this year, released shortly before the mid-term elections. Navarro had denied having anything to do with the drug trade.
