Officer’s death leaves family without main source of support
He was a good breadwinner, a dedicated son and a loving father.
That is how parents and wife of SPO1 Roderick Balili will remember him, they said during his wake in St. Peter’s Funeral Homes in Barangay Lorega San Miguel, Cebu City.
They refrained from answering questions related to the police operative’s death, now the subject of a police investigation.
“Ang Ginoo nay bahala (We leave it up to God),” Balili’s 60-year-old mother told reporters.
The police officer’s mother said that Balili kept on providing for them and supporting 10 siblings, even if he already had a family of his own.
“Usahay ra na makauli sa amo pero kanunay mopadala og kwarta para bugas, tubig ug kuryente (He seldom visited us at home but he always sent money for rice and our water and power bills),” she said. Balili’s family lives in a mountain barangay in Cebu City, where they depend on farming.
“The last time I saw him alive was when he brought our child to school that day,” Balili’s widow said, in tears.
“I want him to be respected in his death,” she requested.
Balili was part of the Bagsik Class of 2005 of the Philippine National Police Academy. His stint in the Provincial Intelligence Branch of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) earned him medals. He reportedly had at least nine Medalya ng Kasanayan and Medalya ng Kagalingan, in recognition of his skills and effectiveness.
He was assigned to the Regional Special Operations Group in 2016.
Accidental
Now, the Regional Investigation and Detection Management Division is investigating his death. An official of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 denied that Balili was the one who shot Von Rian Tecson, an agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), last Aug. 8 in Carcar City.
Tecson was the second PDEA 7 agent shot and killed in Cebu in less than two weeks, after Baby Earl Rallos.
The PRO 7 said that Balili with other team members were conducting surveillance on high-value target Noel Quirante in the town of Pinamungajan, some 32.4 kilometers away from Carcar, when Tecson was shot.
The police also said that Balili succumbed to two gunshot wounds on his chest after the driver of the vehicle they were in accidentally pulled the trigger as he was handing the latter’s gun, when they drove over a road hump.