DILG: PNP, not NBI, is lead hazing prober
The Philippine National Police (PNP) is the one on top of the case of alleged fraternity hazing victim Marvin Reglos, and not the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said on Saturday.
On Friday, the Reglos family lawyer told the Inquirer that he would seek the NBI’s withdrawal from the case for supposedly muddling it by coming up with findings on the alleged crime scene in Antipolo City which contradicted the report of the local police.
Robredo said he spoke to Justice Secretary Leila De Lima about the case on Friday night and that they both agreed that the Antipolo City police would be in charge of building the case against the suspects.
Robredo said the NBI could help in the investigation but suggested that the bureau refrain from “undermining” the case that the Antipolo police had already built.
The official said he had read the police investigation reports and found their case “solid.”
Robredo reminded the NBI that it should never allow itself to be used by Lambda Rho Beta, the fraternity at the center of the police investigation.
Earlier, NBI Death Investigation Division executive officer Danielito Lalusis said a check made by the bureau indicated that the hazing rites that allegedly killed Reglos on Feb. 19 took place not at Guillean’s Place resort in Antipolo, contrary to the police report.
Lalusis then said that members of another fraternity—not the Lambda Rho Beta which the San Beda law freshman was trying to join—were staying at the resort that day.
But Robredo said eyewitnesses had positively identified Lambda Roh members at the alleged crime scene.
He also questioned the findings of the NBI for relying on the statement of one of the suspects, Christian Adobo, who claimed that he was neither a Lambda Rho member nor a San Beda student.
Robredo said Adobo’s claim was probably a mere diversionary ploy since a fraternity that plans to conduct hazing rites in a certain place would quite understandably try to cover its tracks by using other names.
