Slain jail officer‘s remains cremated

The family of slain Jail Officer 1 Jayvee Jason Vargas gathers during a short mass for the final blessing of his remains at Sanctuario de Bacolod Memorial in Barangay Alijis, Bacolod City Monday. (Photo courtesy of Adrian Prietos)

By: Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – The remains of slain Jail Officer 1 Jayvee Jason Vargas were cremated at St. Peter’s Chapel here Monday morning.

The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) also rendered a 21-gun salute to Vargas after a mass held at Sanctuario de Bacolod Memorial in Barangay Alijis, where his family and friends gathered for a short ceremony.

Vargas’s mother, Yvonne, who earlier appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Leni Robredo to help them attain justice for her son’s death, refused to make a statement to the media yesterday.

The jail officer’s other family members and relatives continue to call for justice for his death.

Vargas was killed by unidentified armed men in an ambush at Barangay Cabug here last November 8, after fetching his father, a retired jail officer, and his three relatives from a cockpit in Barangay Pahanocoy.

Meanwhile, Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. authored a resolution last week calling for the Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), and all other law enforcement agencies to conduct an investigation for an early resolution of the crime.

The BCPO is still probing four angles behind the ambush slay.

Police are looking into drug-related, work-related, business-related, and grudge as possible angles behind the killing, which the family claimed a “brutal murder.”

Both Vargas and his father were linked to illegal drugs because of their previous alleged involvement in the said illegal activity, an allegation which the family already denied, claiming those were just mere accusations.

Vargas was a registered nurse who entered the bureau to follow the footsteps of his father.