Atimonan report 'inaccurate, one-sided' — defendants' lawyer

The lawyer of the soldiers and policemen implicated in the January 6 bloodbath in Atimonan, Quezon, described as “very innacurate” the report that concluded that the incident was a rubout and not a shootout. Crisanto Buela, legal counsel of the group, said the report — prepared by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which investigated the incident — was also “one-sided” as it dismissed the testimony of their witness, Rolando Boncayo Vico. "Iyong tungkol sa presence ni Vico sa site ng incident, doubtful daw kasi wala daw corroborative testimony. Pero mayroon naman sila witnesses na mag asawang Gliane na may statement na kasama nila doon si Vico," Buela told GMA News Online in an interview Monday. Vico was a caretaker at a prawn hatchery near the checkpoint were the group gunned down 13 men, including two active policemen, in what they claimed was a shootout with members of a gun-for-hire group led by alleged jueteng operator Victor Siman, who was one of the fatalities. "Unreliable" testimony In its report, the NBI—the sole authority tasked by President Benigno Aquino III to probe the incident—said Vico's testimony was "unreliable." "No one from among all those who gave their respective statements and affidavits corroborated the presence of Vico at the scene of the incident," read page 54 of the report, which was submitted to Aquino early February but released to the public only last week. However, a perusal of the 64-page report revealed that at least two witnesses mentioned the presence of Vico around the time of the incident. One was Lovely Gliane, a resident near the area where the checkpoint was set up. "She (Lovely) averred that on January 6, 2013, at about 10 a.m., while they were in front of a hatchery together with Rolando 'Bogs' Vico, two men in civilian clothes coming from the waiting shed beside the hatchery approached them and told them to vacate the place because they would conduct an operation," the report said on page 14. The second witness to confirm Vico's presence was Lovely's husband, William, who, the report said, claimed that " Bogs Vico and his wife went inside the compound of the hatchery, while he and his wife, Lovely, went inside their house in HGV Beach Resort," In her testimony, Lovely said gunshots were heard shortly after lunch "as if it were New Year's Eve." In its report, however, the NBI said that granting Vico was in the area, his accounts would still be unreliable given his distance from the checkpoint. "From his relative position as declared in his sworn statement and given the distance (20 to 25 meters), his view would have been hampered by the vehicles parked in the area, thus making it rather difficult for him to accurately give a detailed account of the incident," the NBI said in its report. The NBI also mentioned that Vico failed to mention the presence of the truck, in which the driver-witnesses were on board and which was passing by the area around the time of the incident. Buela said their camp would reveal what he claimed were inaccuracies in the NBI report but said they would do so at the right time. Vico's testimony In his testimony, Vico said he was at his sister's prawn hatchery in Atimonan when he saw two black vehicles being stopped at a checkpoint in Barangay Lumutan at about 3:20 p.m. of January 6. He claimed to be 25 meters away from the checkpoint. He said he saw the policemen and soldiers at the checkpoint asking the passengers of the convoy to alight from their vehicles. However,  none of the passengers got out of the vehicles. According to Vico, he heard a series of gunshots emanate from inside the vehicles moment later. "Narinig ko na sinabihan ng mga pulis ang mga sakay ng sasakyan ng 'BABA, BABA' ngunit walang bumaba sa sasakyan at bigla na lamang pinutukan ng nakasakay sa sasakyan ang mga pulis na nagsasagawa ng checkpoint," Vico said in a one-page sworn statement. He said he heard around three gunshots from inside the first vehicle of the victims. "Nakita ko ang isang lalake na naka-civilian na natumba dahil sa tinamaan ng bala at gumanti na ng putok sa mga nakasakay sa sasakyan ang mga pulis at mga sundalo," he added. Only Superintendent Hansel Marantan, ground commander of the law enforcers manning the checkpoint, was wounded in the incident. He has since insisted that the Atimonan incident was the result of a "legitimate shootout." No truck Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and a team from the NBI had earlier driven to the crime site in Atimonan to personally witness a re-enactment of the incident, based on statements of two witnesses. From the re-enactment, De Lima concluded that the bloodbath was "definitely not [the result of] a shootout." Buela said Vico also insisted that he did not see a truck pass by the area around the time of the shooting. The driver-witnesses presented by De Lima had claimed they were on board a truck when they supposedly witnessed the incident. Buela and Lt. Col. Monico Abang of the 1st Special Forces Battalion, who headed the contingent of soldiers that assisted the policemen at the checkpoint, had earlier insisted there were mistakes in that re-enactment. As ordered by Aquino, Marantan and 33 other policemen and soldiers are set to be charged with multiple murder and obstruction of justice charges in connection with the incident. De Lima last week said some of the suspects obstructed justice when they fired the guns of the slain victims into the air supposedly to make it appear that a shootout occurred, even as most of the firearms turned over to the investigators for examination were not the ones used in the bloodbath. — KBK, GMA News