Thirteen police officers and men who were involved in the so-called Atimonan shooting incident in January 2013 were dismissed from the service, the Philippine National Police said on Monday.
PNP Director General Alan Purisima signed the dismissal order of Supt. Hansel Marantan, Supt. Ramon Balauag, Senior Insp. John Paulo Carracedo; Chief Insp. Grant Gollod; Senior Insp. Timoteo Orig; Senior Police Officer 3 Joselito de Guzman; SPO1s Claro Cataquiz Jr. and Arturo Sarmiento; PO3 Eduardo Oronan; PO2s Nelson Indal and Al Bhazar Jailani; and PO1s Wryan Sardea and Rodel Talento.
The PNP chief affirmed the decision of the Internal Affairs Service (IAS) who found the accused liable for serious breach of operational procedure on Jan. 6, 2013.
The accused police personnel faced administrative and criminal charges in connection with the summary execution of 13 men led by suspected gambling financier Vic Siman.
Balauag was among police officers led by Supt. Hanzel Marantan and a group of soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Battalion accused of gunning down Siman’s group on Jan. 6, 2013 in Barangay Lumutan, Atimonan, Quezon.
The Atimonan incident was reported initially as a shootout between joint police and military operatives led by Marantan but was later reinvestigated due to some discrepancies that pointed to a rub-out case.
Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, chief of the PNP-Public Information Office, said two more administrative charges are pending before the IAS against the group of Marantan, including grave misconduct relating to the death of Siman and 12 others.
The second one is grave misconduct which involves Balauag and Carracedo for obstruction of justice reportedly relating to the alleged attempt to cover up the incident.
Sindac said they received report that the group of Marantan will be filing a motion for reconsideration, intended to reverse the dismissal order.
According to IAS, at the course of the investigation, it was found out that there was indeed an operation mapped out against a group of persons supposed to be carrying high-powered firearms from the Bicol region to
The operation had a go-signal at the leadership of the CALABARZON (
Part of the operation was to set up three layers of checkpoint along a national highway in Atimonan town, with the policemen being backed up by a group of soldiers at the second checkpoint. The distance among the checkpoint areas was some 500 meters.
“The Office of the Chief PNP finds the establishment of the checkpoints as authorized as the same was covered by a COPLAN,” an excerpt of the IAS decision read.
“However, serious irregularity in the performance of duty was committed by the respondents in the conduct thereof,” it added.
By serious irregularity, the IAS findings counted the ways as to why the group of Marantan committed serious irregularities.
First was that the distance between the three checkpoints “is deemed unusual since the personnel manning each layer (checkpoint) could hardly see each other.”
The first checkpoint, manned by Insp. Ferdinand Aguilar, PO3 Benedict Dimayuga, Police Officer 1 Allen Ayobo and Police Officer 1 Bernie de Leon, was set up in Barangay Tanauan in Plaridel town.
The problem, however, was that the checkpoint set up was in violation of the seven-man team rule for each checkpoint and worse, the checkpoint area was beyond the jurisdiction of the five cops. The five policemen were from the Atimonan police while the checkpoint was set up in the nearby Plaridel town.
The third checkpoint was set up in Atimonan town and was manned by Insp. Evaristo San Juan (who is now retired) and two other cops — the setup was also undermanned.
This resulted in the IAS recommendation for a one-rank demotion on Aguilar and Dimayuga from the first checkpoint, and
The two rookie cops, Ayobo and De Leon, could not be demoted further and as such, were handed with six-month suspension without pay.
Marantan and Balauag were the ones leading the second checkpoint, backed up by soldiers from the local military force. The problem, according to the IAS report, was that they were in civilian clothes.
“Said personnel, as well as the other persons in civilian attire in the area, displaying in full view high- powered arms and actively participating in the conduct of the checkpoint, have in the first place no business to be at the checkpoint, much more participate in its conduct, basically because of their appearance (in civilian clothes and carrying high-powered firearms),” the report read, citing Section 3, Rule 25 of the Police Operational Procedure.
The same report noted that the vehicles used in the second checkpoint were not marked police vehicles, which also violated the rules on setting up of checkpoints.
“The required signages in the checkpoint operation were not complied with,” it added.
It was at the second checkpoint where the alleged rub-out occurred, with the policemen and soldiers accused of peppering the convoy of Siman with bullets.
Marantan, for his part, had claimed that the first shot was fired by the group of Siman, as revealed by the two bullet wounds he suffered during the supposed shootout.
The basic arguments as to who fired the first shot and if the case was a rub-out are now the subject of the criminal case against the group of Marantan, which is separate from the administrative charges handled by the IAS.
The issue of rub-out was further amplified with the allegation that Marantan had all the motive to liquidate Siman allegedly over turf war on illegal gambling operations in Laguna.
Meanwhile, the case of Police Chief Supt. James Melad, former Calabarzon regional director, and Senior Supt. Valeriano de Leon, who was the director of the Quezon Provincial Police Office, has already been forwarded to the National Police Commission (Napolcom),) Sindac said.
According to Sindac, Melad and De Leon are presidential appointees so the IAS could not act on their case and the Napolcom will now handle their case.
He said that in the meantime that the legal battle will continue, all of them will remain in the Custodial Office where all of them are detained.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=635145
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