How come the ambush victim is now the one facing arrest?
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo on Thursday admonished the Eastern Police District (EPD) for drawing media attention to the 2011 drug possession case of newspaper reporter Fernan Angeles instead of focusing on the hunt for his attackers.
“It appears that some probers from the EPD and the Pasig [police] office have a different agenda in their investigations into Angeles’ case,” he said in a statement. “The investigation should focus on who are the people who shot him and determine their motives and not his alleged drug case.”
Robredo further turned up the heat on the EPD leadership and recalled that a few years earlier, “reports surfaced that several top-ranking officials of EPD and the Pasig City [police] were allegedly on (the) payroll” of convicted drug dealer Amin Imam Boratong.
The secretary, who exercises administrative powers over the police, was reacting to the EPD’s earlier disclosure that the Daily Tribune reporter has a pending arrest warrant issued last year by a Pasig City judge for his failure to attend hearings on his drug case.
Echoing Robredo’s concern, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda noted “the seeming focus on Fernan being a suspect than on the alleged masterminds of the attempt on his life.”
Press corps ‘disturbed’
The Malacañang Press Corps, of which Angeles is currently a member, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the EPD’s statement on Wednesday that Fernan “will be arrested once he recovers” from his wounds. The reporter remained in the hospital as of Thursday after being shot seven times in the attack.
Asked why the drug case was being brought up, EPD director Senior Superintendent Mario Soriano then explained that this background could help investigators pinpoint the perpetrators of Sunday’s attack and “go deeper into Angeles’ involvement in the drug trade.”
Reacting to Robredo’s statement Thursday, EPD deputy director Senior Supt. Antonio Gumiran said the warrant cropped up in the course of the investigation and that EPD spokesman Supt. Ganaman Ali simply answered queries about it in a media briefing.
Robredo said he had ordered his department’s Office of Internal Security (OIS) to conduct its own probe on the mauling and shooting of Angeles on the night of March 11 near his Pasig City residence.
“Based on what I have read in the papers, the twist is that Angeles might end up being arrested ahead of his assailant. What was done by the EPD and the Pasig City PNP is that it appears [Angeles] was the one at fault,” he said.
‘Immaterial’ for now
Robredo stressed that Angeles “may or may not be the subject of the warrant … but it is immaterial at the moment.”
“The EPD and Pasig City [police] should not dwell much on that. The priority should be to capture the suspects,” he said.
The secretary said the OIS probe should focus on tracking down at least one suspect identified as “Faisal.” It was the name Angeles reportedly whispered to his wife, Gemma, before he temporarily lost consciousness at the Pasig City General Hospital.
The EPD, Robredo said, should dig into reports that Faisal was one of the remnants of a syndicate once led by Boratong, the convicted operator of a “shabu tiangge (drug flea market)” in Barangay (village) Mapayapa, Pasig City.
Located on a compound just half a kilometer away from Pasig City Hall, the tiangge was raided by the police in February 2006.
Boratong went into hiding for 10 months after the raid until he was arrested. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2009.—With reports from Norman Bordadora and Kristine Felisse Mangunay