Top police officials in the Cordillera Autonomous Region and Abra province are facing murder complaints filed by the National Bureau of Investigation before the Department of Justice related to the killing of a bodyguard of Pilar Vice Mayor Jaja Josefina Somera Disono last month.
According to a 24 Oras TV report, the NBI recommended for prosecution CAR regional director Police Brig. Gen. Ronald Lee and Police Col. Maly Cula, acting police provincial director in Abra.
Police Lt. Col. Melencio Mina, chief of the provincial intelligence unit and provincial drug enforcement unit; Police Capt. Ronaldo Eslabra, chief of the Pilar police; Rodrigo Base, Comelec Officer 2; and members of the Pilar police and the regional mobile force battalion were also charged.
“Conspiracy (is defined as a) unity of acts,” said lawyer Joseph Martinez of the NBI-National Capital Region.
“Based on the evidence we have gathered, they set up a PNP-Comelec checkpoint which they tried to pass off as legitimate but the evidence we got indicated otherwise,” he added.
Sought for comment, Lee said the conspiracy angle was only an allegation by the NBI.
Police have alleged that Disono’s guards shot it out with policemen after their convoy reportedly ignored a Comelec checkpoint in March.
One of the vice mayor’s guards, Sandy Bermudo, was killed in the alleged shootout, but the NBI findings indicated there was no shootout.
The complainants believe police officials in CAR and Abra conspired against them in connection with the coming elections.
“We just want the truth to come out, and give justice to our companion Sandy Boy Bermudo,” Disono said.
The police reportedly have yet to give the NBI access to the results of the paraffin test of the policemen and the ballistic test of surrendered weapons.
The Philippine National Police in early April filed complaints against Disono, Pilar Mayor Maro Somera, and their personnel over the fatal standoff on March 29.
In a statement, the PNP said Somera and Disono were facing violations of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 as amended by the Expanded Trafficking in Persons Act.
A complaint for serious disobedience to an agent of a person in authority was also filed against Pilar government personnel Robert Boreta Toreno, Emmanuel Nicanor Valera, and Disono’s househelper Jericho Toreno Bufil, who was also charged with attempted murder.
