Family of Davao student slain by doctor asks NBI to take over probe

DAVAO CITY—The family of a male student who was killed by a police doctor outside a bar here on Saturday has asked the National Bureau of Investigation to handle the case, and asked the regional and city police to inhibit from investigating the incident.

Lawyer Gibb Andrew Cabahug said the family of Amierkhan Mangacop, who died of seven gunshot wounds outside Lugar Café and Bar along V. Mapa corner Tavera Streets past 1 a.m. on Saturday, sought the NBI’s help in a letter to the agency’s regional head, Jonathan Balite, on July 5.

Mangacop was a 19-year old Grade 9 student, not a 21-year-old as reported in the police blotter, said Cabahug, the family’s legal counsel.

In the letter to the NBI, Mangacop’s family demanded for a “fair and just investigation” of the case and for the city police’s San Pedro police station and the Police Regional Office in Davao region (PRO) to turn over to the NBI the case files, including those in the possession of the PRO cybercrime unit.

The letter was also sent to City Prosecutor Jophee Avanceña and Inquest Prosecutor Irene Joy Tala Montero while copies were furnished to the Office of the Ombudsman and the police offices in the city and region.

According to the letter, the Mangacop family has been “hesitant to forward to the Davao police the names of witnesses and pieces of evidence for fear of suppression and whitewash” since top police officers in the city had already claimed that the assailant, Dr. Marvin Rey Andrew Pepino, a physician assigned at the PRO and son of the late Police Gen. Marvin Manuel Pepino and grandson of the late Police Gen. Manuel Pepino, had only acted in self-defense.

Police account belied

Pepino was reportedly involved in an altercation with a group at a newly opened Lugar Café and Bar before the student, who just arrived at the area, was shot.

Mangacop’s friends created a personal blog, “Justice for Amier Mangacop” on Facebook on Monday detailing their accounts of the shooting and correcting earlier claims that Mangacop was part of the group who attacked Pepino. Videos released on social media by persons inside and outside the bar during the incident showed that Mangacop was seen still wearing his motorcycle helmet when he and his cousins arrived at the parking lot just outside the bar and passed by the commotion involving Pepino and another group.

According to the letter, the victim, just arrived at Lugar to fetch a cousin and where Pepino “was drinking and carrying his Glock 43.” “It was [with] this weapon that Pepino ended the life of the young Amierkhan,” the lawyer said in the letter.

The letter also noted that even before the family filed a murder complaint against Pepino on Monday, Police Maj. Benkalin Baluan, chief of the San Pedro Police station that investigated the shooting incident, issued a statement on July 2 claiming “that the victim mauled the assailant (Pepino) which caused the latter to shoot the victim in an act of self-defense.”