NOT only did a team of six policemen maul them, one policeman also took the P750 cash from one of the victims.
Another policeman returned the cash he got from another victim.
The victims recognized one of the six armed men to be an operative of the Talamban police station.
These were revealed to SunStar Cebu by two of the three male victims of police mauling during a buy-bust operation in Barangay Carreta, Cebu City on April 18.
The two men approached SunStar Cebu Friday night, April 26, to tell their side of what happened on April 18.
“Gikuha sa usa ka pulis ang akong kwarta. P750.
Maayo pa tong usa kay giuli pa, pero ang usa gikuha jud,” one victim said.
A video showing at least six armed men mauling three persons during what appeared to be a police operation is circulating online.
One of those mauled was the subject of the buy- bust, Eddie Basillote, who has since been detained at the Talamban Police Station.
The two victims said that they were playing a bingo game when a team of armed policemen barged into the gaming shop and roughed them up. The two victims were then told to squat in the corner as the police had their attention on Basillote.
The police left with Basillote but some came back and beat them, the two victims said.
They played dead so the police wouldn’t beat them further, they said. When they saw all the police had left, they fled.
One of them said they did not resist or fight the police during the operation. How could they fight back when they were beaten black and blue and had a gun trained at them, the two men said.
“Wala man mi nisukol gud. Unsaon pagsukol namo nga samtang gikulata mi, naa may gati-on namo,” he said.
They said they knew Basillote because, like them, he frequented the gaming shop and played there.
The two men positively identified one of the six armed men who mauled them to be an operative of Talamban Police Station.
SunStar Cebu is withholding the name of the police officer pending the development of the case.
The two victims denied the five small sachets of shabu allegedly recovered from them during the operation were theirs.
They said they will cooperate with Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Director Royina Garma in the investigation on the assurance that they and their families would be kept safe and secure.
“Willing mi muadto kung i-kuan ni Ma’am Garma. Pero ang amoa is for safety lang kay naa baya mi pamilya,” one of the two men said.
Meanwhile, Basillote’s sister Criselda Peña said the police team used excessive force on the three civilians and should be removed from service.
A woman, who witnessed Basillotes’s arrest on April 18, said the CCTV footage showed that the shabu allegedly found in Basillote’s possession was planted.
They did not frisk Basillote, who didn’t have a shirt on at the time. If indeed they found shabu on Basillote, the police would have laid the stuff on a table and taken pictures of it, the woman said.
But this was not the case, she said.
She said that Basillote and two other men were playing inside the gaming shop when armed men knocked on the door.
She thought it was her husband who had returned from buying beer. She locks the door of the gaming shop to screen holduppers.
She said that Basillote told her to open the door when they saw firearm muzzles being inserted on the holes of the gaming shop.
Basillote told her that they had nothing to hide nor were they involved in anything illegal, she said.
But the armed men had barged in by then, destroying the door.
They arrested Basillote but only after they mauled him and the two other men who were playing.
“Nag-iyahay na sila’g pangulata. Luoy kaayo akong uyuan gikulata nila tabangan,” she said.
Basillote, unlike the other two mauled persons, was then arrested by the unidentified armed men.
Peña, 22, sister of Basillote, said one of the armed men threatened to shoot her as she begged them to stop hurting her brother.
Erlinda Basillote, 34, a cousin, together with other kin, said they went straight to the Talamban Police Station to check on him but found out that he was not yet detained there.
Basillote’s common-law wife, who requested not to be named, said that Eddie, already in jail, told her that he was taken to Barangay Sirao after his arrest because the armed men had another operation there.
A kin of Basillote recognized one of the armed men to be a member of the Talamban police.
The kin said that two months ago a police operation was conducted in their area and that one of those who arrested Basillote on April 18 was the same person who went to her room during the February police operation.
Agnes Roble, Carreta desk officer for the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Badac), said that the family of Basillote approached her to ask for help during the night of the incident.
She referred them to barangay councilor Cris Barda who, however, was in Daanbantayan town.