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Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Ombud to look into vigilante killings
With 88 people already dead, all shot vigilante-style by masked motorcycle-riding gunmen, the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas will finally launch a fact-finding probe.
Ombudsman Director Virginia Santiago, in an interview, said they weren’t able to move quicker because they had to wait for clearance from the Office of the Ombudsman-Military.
“We received the memorandum from Deputy Ombudsman (Orlando) Casi-miro only recently. Now we are cleared to conduct our fact-finding investigation,” she said.
With the probe, the anti-graft office will be requiring Acting Cebu City Police Chief Melvin Gayotin and his subordinates to submit a written update on each of the recorded murder cases.
Documents
“We want to know what the police are doing. We want documents like the records made of each killing, the blotter entries and the list of evidences and other items obtained in relation to each of these cases,” she said.
A shooting in Sitio Mohon II, Barangay Tisa last Aug. 21 brought to 88 the number of people slain in the spate of killings that began on Dec. 22, 2004, days after Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña supposedly expressed in public his intent to reward policemen and civilians who are able to shoot dead or maim a criminal.
Police have not made any headway into the investigation although one name – SPO1 Adonis Dumpit – keeps on popping up as a possible suspect.
Part of the anti-graft office’s fact-finding investigation, Santiago said, is Dumpit’s alleged involvement and “whoever else is supposedly involved” in the vigilante-style attacks.
The office will also check reports that Dumpit was injured in a recent shootout with one of his alleged intended victims – Alemar Luna – last July 20.
Dumpit has denied this. Although he hasn’t been seen in Cebu City since he was suspended mid-June, he explained that he is only vacationing in Davao City and not in hiding to recuperate from his gunshot wounds, contrary to reports.
A group of unidentified men ambushed Luna in his Barangay Buhisan residence last July 20. According to sources, he was hit but was able to shoot back.
Luna had been living quietly in Buhisan since the Court of Appeals, in January of this year, overturned his earlier conviction as a suspected triggerman of the New People’s Army.
The decision penned by Associate Justice Pampio Abarintos cleared Luna of charges of gun and explosive possession for the prosecution’s failure to prove that he was carrying the .357 revolver and the grenade seized during his arrest on Jan. 20, 1997. (KNR)
(August 24, 2005 issue)
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