Past, present PNP officers face trial over rifle sales

FILE PHOTO

Axed Chief Supt. Raul Petrasanta and 10 other active and retired police officers face arrest after the Sandiganbayan found probable cause to proceed with their trial for the alleged sale of AK-47 assault rifles to communist rebels.

The decision of the antigraft court’s Fifth Division was another blow for Petrasanta, a decorated police officer and a close aide of President Aquino who was once touted as the next chief of the Philippine National Police.

A member of Philippine Military Academy Class of 1984, Petrasanta was dismissed from the service by the Ombudsman last year over the allegedly fraudulent awarding of a P100-million service contract to a startup courier company for the delivery of gun licenses.

He was one of the directors of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office during the period when 1,004 Russian-made AK-47 assault weapons worth P52 million were supposedly sold to New People’s Army fighters from 2011 to 2013.

In an eight-page resolution, the antigraft court did not give weight to the claims of the police officers that there was no legal ground to hold them accountable for violation of Republic Act No. 3019, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

Instead, the court said the separate motions filed by the accused police officers for judicial determination of probable cause was “unnecessary” as previously ruled by the Supreme Court.

“After a judicious, personal and independent review of the record… the court finds that there is substantial evidence on record to support a finding of probable cause against the accused-movants,” the antigraft court said in its Feb. 29 resolution.

Besides Petrasanta, ordered arrested were retired PNP Directors Gil Meneses and Napoleon Estilles, former Chief Superintendents Tomas Rentoy III and Regino Catiis, and former Senior Superintendents Eduardo Acierto and Allan Parreño.

Also to be arrested were Supt. Nelson Bautista, Chief Insp. Ricardo Zapata Jr., Senior Police Officers 1 Eric Tan and Randy de Sesto, and civilian employees Nora Pirote and Sol Bargan.