Cops implicated in Atimonan shootings in restrictive custody, miss DOJ probe

(Updated 8:00 p.m.) The 14 members of the Philippine National Police implicated in the January 6 mass killing at a checkpoint in Atimonan, Quezon did not attend the Department of Justice's preliminary probe on Monday as they remained under "restrictive custody"—confined to PNP headquarters in Camp Crame. However, all 11 members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines implicated in the incident, which resulted in the death of alleged jueteng operator Victor Siman and his 12 companions, turned up. Among the PNP officials who didn't show up were former Calabarzon police director Chief Superintendent James Andres Melad and his former deputy intelligence head Supt. Hansel Marantan. According to his lawyers Marantan, the lone police officer manning the checkpoint who was wounded in the bloodbath, is still in hospital. The only accused PNP officers at the probe were the seven who belonged to the Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) of the provincial police of Quezon province, separately accused of violating Presidential Decree No. 1829 (Obstruction of Justice) for allegedly  tampering with evidence at the crime site. During the investigation, the soldiers and police personnel submitted their respective consolidated counter-affidavits to the panel of prosecutors. The 11 soldiers were among those charged with violation of Article 247 (Murder) of the Revised Penal Code. All clad in white, the families of the 13 victims also attended the preliminary investigation. The soldiers' lawyer, Elmer Train, asked the complainants' camp to submit first all 13 complaint-affidavits before the AFP submits the soldiers' consolidated counter-affidavits. According to the complainants' lawyer Gregorio Bonifacio, only families of the seven victims have so far submitted complaint-affidavits. They were given until Thursday to submit the remaining affidavits. But towards the latter part of the almost three-hour preliminary investigation, Train requested and was allowed by the panel to take back his clients' counter-affidavits, pending the submission  of the other complaint-affidavits. "Ma-jeopardize kasi ang kliyente ko. Kasi ang defense nila magiging iba sa amin," said Train, when asked why he decided to withdraw his clients' counter-affidavit instead of just submitting an amended version later on. For his part, lawyer Crisanto Buela, who legally represents nine of the 14 accused policemen, said his clients were not able to show up because they were all under "restrictive custody." "Pero sa susunod na hearing, sa April 19, makakapunta na sila. Basta makuha na namin lahat ng affidavits ng mga complainants," Buela said. The lawyer said their camp did not immediately prepare their counter-affidavits because of the incomplete set of complaint-affidavits. "Karapatan ng mga kliyente ko na makita muna nang kumpleto ang mga complaints," he said. The criminal complaints were filed by the families of the 13 victims who were gunned down at a checkpoint by a joint force from the local police and military. The families filed the complaint with the help of the National Bureau of Investigation. "From the foregoing pieces of evidence, it is patently clear that the acts of the police officers and the soldiers showed a community of purpose or an implied conspiracy," read the complaint. "There was unity in the purpose and action, signifying that they were all moved by a single criminal intent," the complainants added. They said there was no indication that the implicated government forces "desisted or prevented their group from shooting the victims" even if one of them was already raising his hands in surrender. The complainants said what ground commander Marantan's group carried out on that day was not a checkpoint operation, but a "dragnet," and that no one from the implicated individuals tried intervening, showing a "concerted effort to perpetuate the commission of the crime." At Fort Bonifacio, Army chief Lt. Gen. Noel Coballes said legal assistance will be provided to the soldiers involved in the incident. "We cannot abandon our soldiers when we know that what they did [was done] in good faith,"  Coballes said. Earlier, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the incident was probably the result of a turf rivalry in the region between the group led by Vic Siman, who was one of the fatalities, and the group of a certain "Ka Tita," supposedly a club operator in Ermita, Manila, who later became a "video karera" operator in Laguna. The NBI said Marantan is closely associated with, and is the alleged protector of Ka Tita. "The Atimonan encounter was a well-calculated plan to close the book on Vic Siman under the pretext of Coplan Armado, using government forces and resources. The fault of the other victims was that they were with the wrong company, at the wrong place and at the wrong time," the NBI said in its executive report. — BM/KBK, GMA News