Kadamay sues Bulacan police chief, 3 other cops over 'illegal' raid

Urban poor group Kadamay on Friday filed a complaint against four Region 3 police officers and eight unidentified individuals over the confiscation of the group's flyers along with issues of the alternative news publication Pinoy Weekly last July.

The 18-page complaint was filed before the Office of the Ombudsman accusing the respondents of robbery, gross misconduct and "other related administrative charges."

In the complaint, Kadamay members Marilou Iligan, Lea Maralit, Elizabeth Guerrero and Eufemia Domingo accused the police of conducting a baseless and forced warrantless search in Villa Lois housing site in Pandi, Bulacan.

According to the complainants, the act was as a flagrant disregard of their constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizure as well as their right against deprivation of property without due process of law.

"None of the grounds for warrantless search and seizure also attended the incident. The warrantless search was not incidental to a lawful arrest. In fact, no arrest was even made at the time of the warrantless search and seizure,” the complaint read.

"The Pinoy Weekly magazines were not in plain view because the respondents had to force the complainants to open the office where they are being kept. The respondents cannot claim that we consented to a warrantless search because no such consent was voluntarily given.”

The four Kadamay members also argued that the publication, dissemination and possession of Pinoy Weekly magazines “are a legitimate exercise of press freedom, to which our fundamental right to information, as readers of the publication, is inextricably linked.”

“Even as the magazines present views critical of the government, they do not incite a serious and imminent threat to national security or public order that the government has the right to prevent. This unlawful taking constitutes a deprivation of the constitutional right to property without due process of law,” the complainants said.

Further, the Kadamay members claimed they were coerced to execute a falsified document in support of the police's "fictitious" narrative.

"For committing acts that are patently illegal, irregular, immoral and devoid of justification, the respondents should be held administratively liable," the complaint read.

The complainants also asked Ombudsman Samuel Martires to put the police officials under preventive suspension without pay and other benefits.

The four policemen named respondents in the complaint were Region 3 Director Police Brigadier General Rhodel Sermonia; Director of Bulacan Provincial Police Office Police Colonel Lawrence Bonifacio Cajipe; Acting Chief of Police of Pandi, Bulacan Police Captain Jun Javier; and Pandi Police Station chief Police Lieutenant Gerardo Espiritu.

GMA News Online has already reached out to Sermonia as well as Philippine National Police spokesperson Police Brigadier General Bernard Banac for their comment, but they have yet to respond as of posting time. —KBK, GMA News