FORMER Capitol chief security officer Loy Anthony Madrigal and nine others will face trial for allegedly illegally arresting and detaining a group of fishermen off Kinatarcan, Sta. Fe town in Bantayan Island last year.
State Prosecutor Ferdinand Collantes found evidence to charge Madrigal and his co-respondents with two counts of slight illegal detention.
“After thorough evaluation of the evidence at hand, undersigned finds that there is sufficient ground to engender a well-founded belief that the crime for violation of slight illegal detention,” read Collantes in his resolution.
Donato Villaceran, captain of AC fishing boat, and two fishermen charged Madrigal of violating Presidential Decree (PD) 532, or the Anti-Piracy and Anti-Highway Robbery Law, and Article 267, or kidnapping or serious illegal detention, of the Revised Penal Code.
Another boat
Aside from fb AC, Madrigal also apprehended fb JSV that was en route to San Remigio and manned by Rogelio Forrosuelo.
The PD 532 complaint was filed after Madrigal’s group allegedly stole 46 tubs of fish worth P161,000.
The complaint for violating Article 267 was filed because Madrigal allegedly detained Villaceran and his crew.
Servidio Panares, Titing Rubio, Danilo Rosales, Junior Micarsos, Onel Anislagon, Oscar Onje, Bobby Monterde, a certain Gilly and three John Does were also named respondents in the complaints.
Replying to the charges, Madrigal described the operation as a citizen’s arrest.
He said the charges against them were meant to harass and pressure him and his co-respondents for arresting them.
He said he later released the fishermen and the two fishing boats. The suspects are repeat offenders, he said.
Forrosuelo pleaded guilty when Madrigal arrested him in Daanbantayan some years ago for illegal fishing and resisting arrest, while Villaceran was arrested for illegal fishing when Madrigal was still with the Capitol.
As a citizen, Madrigal said, he has the right to arrest them as they were in the act of committing a crime.
Illegal
In the resolution, Prosecutor Collantes said the series of events coupled with the video footage on the alleged seaborne operation was “illegal if not dubious.”
Collantes said the respondents’ defense should be threshed out in a full-blown trial.
In 2004, Madrigal resigned from the Capitol after he was involved in a vehicular accident that resulted in the death of Felix Mirambel.
The Capitol vehicle was driven by a private person. Madrigal was also accused of having an affair with a married Capitol employee.