THE seventeen policemen implicated in the death of 17-year-old Kian Delos Santos have all failed to submit their counter-affidavits against the administrative charges being prepared by the Philippine National Police–Internal Affairs Service (PNP-IAS), a police official said Friday.
IAS inspector general Alfegar Triambulo said they issued an order on August 25 asking for the said policemen to submit their counter-affidavits within five days, but none of them complied.
Suspects included in the charge sheet are former Caloocan City police chief Senior Superintendent Chito Bersaluna, police station commander Chief Inspector Amor Cerillo, Police Officer 4 Arnel Oares, Police Officers 1 Jeremias Pereda and Jerwin Cruz, and 13 others who took part in the Caloocan’s "One Time Big Time" anti-illegal drug operations on August 16.
Triambulo said Bersaluna and Cerillo may face serious neglect of duty considering that they were both on top of the operation while the other police officers will be charged with serious irregularity in the performance of duty.
“Si Bersaluna kasi siya ‘yung superior, bilang chief of police. ‘Yung team leader and precinct commander na si Cerillo, kapag ganyan na operation na nag-result ng kapalpakan, kasama ‘yung supervisor and superior kung mapatunayang sila ay may neglect,” he said.
“Command responsibility ‘yung serious neglect of duty dahil may namatay kaya very serious ‘yung lapses ng operation na yun,” he added.
Delos Santos was killed after he allegedly resisted arrest and tried to fire shots against the arresting police officers.
But based on a CCTV footage and the accounts of several eyewitnesses, the victim was dragged by two policemen before he was found dead.
A witness also claimed that Delos Santos even pleaded for his life before he was shot dead.
The Caloocan police accused Delos Santos of being a drug runner but admitted that they only had knowledge on the latter’s involvement on illegal drugs after he was killed.
Oares, Jeremias and Cruz were the three cops directly involved in the killing.
Based on the ballistics examination, the slug which killed Delos Santos matches to the service firearms of Oares. (SunStar Philippines)