AN OFFICIAL of the Police Regional Office in Northern Mindanao (PRO-10) said the shootout that left a policeman dead last week was not a misencounter, but a police interdiction operation.
Superintendent Surki Sereñas, PRO-10 spokesperson said, the shootout was an interdiction of the highway police officers arising from reasonable belief that the law has been violated.
Interdiction is defined as the action of intercepting and preventing the movement of a prohibited commodity or person.
Sereñas said the improvised license plate, heavily-tinted windows and the attempt to flee are reasonable grounds for the policemen to act accordingly.
"It just so happen that they were fired upon first. They just defended themselves. It was defensive shooting engagement on the part of our personnel," Sereñas said in a statement.
He said it is common sense that if one wants to engage in a firefight, he or she must be superior in number and power. And the suspect at the time was armed with an automatic rifle compared to the policemen with just a 9mm handgun.
"It might have been the lopsided fight they are referring as mismatch, not misencounter," he said.
Sereñas said the action of the highway patrol personnel was a response to a "reasonable suspicion".
He added that Senior Superintendent Danilo Buentipo, the Regional Highway Patrol Unit chief who gave the statements that the incident was a misencounter, might have been either misquoted or misunderstood, Sereñas said.