INQUIRER Global Nation

THE surviving Family of slain SPO4 Asterio Butron would receive a total of P1.4 million in benefits from the Philippine National Police (PNP), aside from a monthly pension for his wife and a scholarship program for his three children.

Chief Supt. Ronald Roderos personally informed Butron's family of the benefits when he visited the policeman's wake yesterday morning at the St. Peter Funeral Homes in Mabini Street, Cebu City.

Roderos, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), also gave a financial assistance of P10,000 from his own pocket.

The P1.4 million includes death benefits and insurance claims as member of the PNP since 1980.

His wife, Rosa, would also receive P12,500 in monthly pension.

The couple's eldest daughter is a third year nursing student, while his only son will be entering third year high school and his youngest daughter, in third grade this coming June.

Roderos, who described Butron as an industrious police officer, also gave the slain officer a posthumous Medalya Ng Kadakilaan or the PNP Heroism Medal.

Butron was also honored by PRO-7 with their Philippine flag in half mast.

Rosa said she did not expect that the highest ranking police official in Central Visayas would visit her husband's wake.

She profusely thanked Roderos' for his assistance and for sympathizing with their grief.

The Lapu-Lapu police were still in the process of coming up with an artist sketch of the three robbers.

Butron, an acting leader of the PRO-7 band, was robbed and killed by three unidentified men who boarded his cab on Tuesday evening in an unlighted area in Lapu-Lapu City.

The place was described by residents and police as crime-prone.

Supt. Louie Oppus, Lapu-Lapu City Police Office director, said he would ask the City Council to address the unlighted area.

The autopsy result showed that Butron's cause of death was excessive loss of blood.

Supt. Nestor Sator, medico legal officer and chief of the PNP crime laboratory, said Butron was hit in the right cheek with the bullet exiting the left cheek, and in the back.

Sator said no vital organ was hit.

“It could not be a case of instantaneous death because there were no vital organs affected,” he said.

According to the medico legal officer, Butron could have had difficulty in breathing due to the blood, which could have flowed into his pancreas.

Sator said that based on his assessment, Butron would not have died if the bleeding was immediately stopped.

Butron's wife and eldest daughter said that the victim was not immediately attended to by physicians in the hospital because there was no available doctor when Butron was brought to the Mactan Doctor's Hospital, where he died a few hours later.

“Nagmahay ko og daku kay way doctor (I have so much regret because there was no doctor),” Rosa said.

She said they had to wait for the doctor who was allegedly in Cebu City at the time.

Roderos asked Lapu-Lapu police to check the family's complaint that Butron was not given immediate medical attention.

In TV reports, Dr. Joselito Monstesclaros, hospital administrator, denied the allegations saying that Butron was immediately attended to but he was experiencing massive bleeding at that time.

Montesclaros asked Butron's relatives to visit the hospital so that they could explain to them what happened.