Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Archie Gamboa INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
Philippine National Police chief Gen. Archie Gamboa has ordered an investigation of the July 18 confrontation between a group of policemen led by National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) director Police Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas and the family of a retired lawman accused of illegally occupying a government-owned property in Taguig City.
While the PNP chief acknowledged that former Police Master Sergeant Arnel delos Santos and his family should have left the compound in Fort Bonifacio a month after his retirement, Gamboa said the way the NCRPO tried to evict them needed to be looked into.
Previous notices?
At an online press briefing on Monday, Gamboa said he presumed the NCRPO had given the Delos Santos family several notices to vacate their house beside the old NCRPO Regional Direct Support Unit building, which the police wanted to turn into a quarantine facility for coronavirus cases. The NCRPO claimed that the Southern Police District had been allowed by the Armed Forces to use the property. “Probably what we will investigate is how the eviction order was carried out,” Gamboa told reporters, citing the footage taken by a closed circuit TV camera of the confrontation between the two groups. It quickly went viral after it was posted by Arles delos Santos, the retired policeman’s son, on social media.
Cell phone grabbing
Part of the footage showed several heavily armed policemen dismantling a barricade of old tires and barbed wire at the entrance to the government compound and a policeman grabbing the cell phone of a family member who had been taking a video of their discussion with Sinas.
“That’s why we will investigate what happened during that confrontation … As to the details why [NCRPO] Director Sinas had many policemen with him and the cell phone taking, we will investigate it and find out why these things happened,” Gamboa said. He added, however, that Sinas had attributed the presence of a large number of policemen at the site to their inspection of probable quarantine areas inside Fort Bonifacio.
Arles delos Santos earlier said his family would file charges of trespassing, harassment, threats and grave misconduct against the policemen. He claimed he showed Sinas documents proving they were staying in the compound legally but the latter shouted at them to leave the area immediately.
Another policeman tried to punch him when he tried to get back the documents he had shown Sinas, Delos Santos added.
For his part, Sinas said the family should have left the compound after the elder Delos Santos retired from the police force in November 2018. INQ