NBI findings to
be sent to Aquino today
INQUIRER FILE
PHOTO
By NANCY C
CARVAJAL
MURDER.
The National
Bureau of Investigation has completed its inquiry into the killing of 13 people
in Atimonan, Quezon province, and is recommending the filing of murder charges
against policemen and soldiers at the checkpoint where the incident happened on
Jan. 6, the Inquirer learned on Tuesday.
Justice
Secretary Leila de Lima said she expected the NBI to submit to her the report
on its monthlong inquiry and that she would turn it over to President Aquino today.
“The President
has asked me about the report and I told him I would give it to him
(Wednesday),” De Lima told reporters. She earlier said that the NBI report had
gone beyond 300 pages.
“The
recommendation was the filing of murder charges,” said a source who has knowledge
of the NBI report. The source requested anonymity for lack of authority to
speak to reporters.
The source said
that the main report of at least 70 pages contains the findings and the names
of persons recommended by the NBI for prosecution.
Enclosed with
the report were annexes at least six inches thick. It includes the technical
findings of the scene of the crime operatives, the accounts of three
eyewitnesses and testimonies of more than 60 people.
NBI Director
Nonnatus Rojas submitted the report to De Lima Tuesday afternoon, according to
the source, who said that the agency’s chief was the sole signatory to the
document.
On Jan. 6,
alleged southern Luzon “jueteng” operator Victor “Vic” Siman and 12 others,
including three policemen and three soldiers, were killed in what the Quezon
police reported as a shootout between police and soldiers and a group of
alleged guns for hire at a security checkpoint on Maharlika Highway in
Atimonan.
There were 15
policemen at the checkpoint, supported by 10 soldiers from the Army’s First
Special Forces Battalion.
Siman’s group
was wiped out, but on the government’s side only the police team leader, Supt.
Hansel Marantan, was wounded - in the hands and knee.
Relatives cry ‘rubout’
The officers said the firefight erupted after two sports utility
vehicles carrying the alleged gang members tried to smash through the
checkpoint. The exchange of gunfire supposedly lasted for 18 minutes.
Relatives of the victims denied that the fatalities were gang members
and doubted the initial reports of a shootout. Instead, they claimed what
happened was a “rubout.”
On Jan. 8,
President Aquino ordered the NBI to investigate the incident. He directed the
Philippine National Police to continue its fact-finding inquiry with respect to
the firearms and vehicles, and submit its findings to the NBI.
On Jan. 9, PNP
Director General Alan Purisima ordered the suspension of the Quezon police
chief, Senior Supt. Valeriano de Leon, and Marantan.
Interior
Secretary Mar Roxas said Marantan’s team violated procedures as an initial PNP
investigation found that the policemen at the checkpoint were not in uniform.
He said that while uniformed officers were stationed 500 meters from the
checkpoint, the area was not marked with police signs.
Anticrime superbody
On Jan. 11, the NBI said it would expand its investigation and look
into the role in the incident of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime
Commission (PAOCC), following a report that the anticrime superbody had
approved the operation.
Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., who chairs the PAOCC, denied
approving the operation.
Supt. Glenn
Dumlao, commander of the Calabarzon Public Safety Battalion, said the regional
police went ahead with the mission even without PAOCC approval on the presumption
of regularity because it was their job to go after organized crime groups.
On Jan. 15, the
PNP fact-finding committee submitted its report to the NBI, and indicated that
there was no shootout. It also said there was a deliberate effort to make the
crime scene look like the site of a gun battle.
The committee
found that excessive force was used, indicated by their gunshot wounds and the
number of bullet holes on their vehicles: Vehicle 1 with 174 entry bullet
holes; vehicle 2 with 45 entry bullet holes. Eleven victims were shot in the
head.
Criminal, admin charges
The PNP panel recommended the filing of criminal charges against the
policemen and Army special forces that took part in the supposed shootout. They
also recommended administrative charges against the policemen involved.
The policemen included James Melad, former Calabarzon police chief;
Marantan; Senior Supt. Valeriano de Leon, Quezon police director; Supt. Ramon
Balauag, chief of intelligence of the Quezon police; Dumlao; Chief Insp. Grant
Gollod, Atimonan police chief; Senior Insp. Ferdinand Aguilar, leader of the
police team at the first of three checkpoints in Atimonan at the time of the
supposed shootout; and Insp. Evaristo San Juan, team leader at the third
checkpoint.
On Jan 24,
Purisima approved the recommendation of the PNP Internal Affairs Service to
bring
administrative
charges against 22 policemen involved in the incident for violation of the
police operational procedures.
As of last
week, 20 policemen were under the custody of the police in Camp Crame while 15
soldiers of the Army’s Special Forces, who were part of an augmentation team,
were restricted to quarters at the Army Headquarters in Fort Bonifacio. –
Inquirer/With reports from Christine O Avendaño and Inquirer Research
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