Cops ask Quezon City court to block dismissal order

Five policemen have asked a Quezon City court to stop the implementation of an order for their dismissal from the service over the wrongful arrest of a man believed to be a terrorist.

Named as respondents in the petition for a temporary restraining order and injunction filed by the lawmen with the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 80 were Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and Philippine National Police chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome.

Morales ordered in January the dismissal from the service of the complainants—Superintendent Roger James Brillantes, Police Officers 3 Noel Fabia and Peter Paul Pablico, PO2 Reynaldo Yap and PO1 Dante Yang—for their arrest of Allan Almoite. “The immediate implementation and enforcement of such Ombudsman dismissal would be unlawful and illegal and would be a violation of the constitutional right to due process because such order could not yet be considered final until the motion for reconsideration has been resolved,” the policemen said in their petition.

Almoite was arrested in October 2003 on the basis of a warrant issued against a certain Ali who was facing kidnapping and serious illegal detention with ransom charges. Almoite, who later claimed that he was tortured into admitting that he was Ali Ambing who was wanted for his involvement in several bombings in Zamboanga City, was ordered released by a Pasig court after it was determined that he was not Ambing.—Julie M. Aurelio