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Saturday, January 20, 2007
Police, Senate to probe Iloilo Capitol siege
MANILA -- The national police leadership and Senate will look into the alleged use of "excessive force" on Wednesday by policemen implementing a dismissal order on Governor Niel Tupas Sr.
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Television video footages on Thursday showed police in full battle gear breaking glass windows and panels at the Iloilo Capitol and aiming high-powered firearms at the governor's children and supporters.
Police Chief Oscar Calderon on Friday ordered a formal investigation into the incident while Senator Franklin Drilon said a resolution calling on the committees on public order and local government to look into the incident is being drafted and will be filed when Congress resumes sessions on Monday.
Calderon directed Director Edgardo Doromal, director of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), to find out if the Regional Motive Group of the Police Regional Police Office (PRO) 6 "acted judiciously in enforcing a lawful order."
Calderon asked Doromal to "gather testimonial and material evidence" to determine if police operatives followed standard operating procedures in serving the Ombudsman order.
The dismissal order was superseded by a temporary restraining order from the Court of Appeals (CA) stopping government from implementing the governor's suspension.
Doromal has flown to Iloilo to jumpstart the investigation and is "set to interview police personnel involved in the operation as well as other persons who were inside the provincial capitol during the incident."
Doromal and the CIDG investigators "will also review video footages and photographs taken during the incident."
Calderon wants to know if it was justified to break the glass panels at the building entrance to free people who had been forced to stay inside when the governor and his followers barricaded the Capitol.
He also wants to see a bigger picture of the entire incident, especially the circumstances that led the police to respond that way.
The Iloilo policemen were merely under orders to bring order and help restore government operations in the Capitol, which stopped when the governor defied the dismissal order and barricaded the government building; to arrest armed persons inside the Capitol like provincial jail guards, civil security personnel and alleged New People's Army (NPA) personalities; and to free persons illegally detained inside the Capitol building who were refused egress because of the barricade.
Police spokesman Samuel Pagdilao Jr. appealed to the public to be circumspect and reserve judgment on the incident until the results of the fact-finding investigation come out.
"If there were lapses or any violation of PNP regulations, we will be swift and decisive in imposing sanctions," Pagdilao said.
At the Senate, Drilon, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and illegal drugs, said Liberal Party (LP) leaders in both the Senate and the House of Representatives condemned the "unnecessary raid and excessive use of force" by the police during the siege. Drilon is LP president.
Drilon, who is currently presiding over a regular meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, said television footages showing policemen in full battle gear, armed with high-powered rifles, manhandling unarmed civilians inside the Iloilo Capitol were shown in international TV "giving the impression that the Philippines is under an undeclared state of Martial Law."
"The use of excessive force against unarmed civilians, including women, is completely unjustified. This fiasco at the Iloilo Capital has given the Arroyo government another black eye before the international community," Drilon said.
Senator Alfredo Lim heads the committee on local government.
LP leaders condemned the Ombudsman's suspension and disqualification order against Tupas saying it was a desperate move on the part of the Arroyo administration.
Former LP president Florencio "Butch" Abad said Malacañang was trying to eliminate some of its strongest opponents like Tupas, who has the support of his province and with no serious contenders for the governorship.
Tupas withdrew his support from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo following the "Hello Garci" controversy. He is a known ally of Drilon.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez Sr., meanwhile, hit the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for allegedly prejudging the takeover of the Iloilo Capitol.
In a letter to CHR chairperson Purificacion Valera-Quisumbing, Gonzalez came to the defense of policemen who swooped on the Capitol to force Tupas out of office, a day after he said the violent takeover could just be a charade since the local police there was actually sympathetic to the governor's camp.
In Pasay City, eight councilors who were earlier dismissed by the Ombudsman are set to file perjury charges against two erstwhile councilor-allies who alleged that they received extortion money in exchange for signing a multimillion peso garbage contract in 2004 and 2005.
In a press briefing at the Heritage Hotel, Councilors Noel Bayona, Paolo Alcera, Richard Advincula, Lexter Ibay, Jose Antonio Roxas, Arnel Regino Arceo, Marie Irish Pineda and Editha Vergel De Dios joined Mayor Wenceslao Trinidad and Vice Mayor Antonio Calixto in lambasting Councilor Generoso Cuneta and her wife Tonya for conspiring with their political rivals to "eliminate" them by making the perjured statement.
Former city legal adviser Phil Ramos said the two alleged in an affidavit presented to the Ombudsman that Trinidad, Vice Mayor Antonio Calixto, and the eight councilors received a huge amount of money from garbage contractors that managed to corner the bidding for the collection and disposal of garbage in that two-year period.
Trinidad claimed that his political foes threatened the Cunetas that the case against them pending before the Pasay City Prosecutor's Office will be revived if they will not testify.
"Our witness here were the four councilors and the vice mayor when councilor Tonya Cuneta admitted to me that she was blackmailed by Joey Dy, the husband of Representative Connie Dy, that they will revive the pending case against her husband," said Trinidad. (VR/CPB/ECV/AH/Sunnex)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Zamboanga. (January 20, 2007 issue)
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Interior office 'reinstates' Tupas as guv