Rage over fireman’s death bears fruit; 4 cops held

Four Makati City policemen were ordered placed under restrictive custody over the April 1 “shoot-out” that killed a fire volunteer and his companion, an alleged case of mistaken identity that later drove other firefighters to train their hoses and wreak havoc at a police station in protest.

The high command of the Philippine National Police (PNP) issued the order on Friday as it promised to cooperate with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in its probe of the deaths of Ronald Infante, a businessman, and mechanic Jenny Almanon .

PNP Director General Nicanor Bartolome ordered the following officers disarmed and restricted to the National Capital Region Police Office headquarters in Taguig City: Police Officer 2 Carmelo Tuzon Jr., PO2 Elmandy Arconado, PO3 Christopher Abeleda and Senior Police Officer 1 Raul Tamarion.

They will remain under this status pending the completion of the NBI investigation, PNP spokesperson Senior Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr. Friday said in a briefing.

“In the best interest of impartiality and due process, we are placing the involved policemen under custody to allow the opportunity to be available to present their side in the continuing investigation of the case,” Bartolome said in a statement.

The four policemen earlier claimed that the shooting was a legitimate police operation against so-called “riding-in-tandem robbers” that terrorize the metropolis.

Police then tagged Infante and Almanon as the motorcycle-riding pair who tried to hijack an LBC courier service van on the night of April 1. They reported that the attempted robbery was witnessed by Makati City residents in Barangay Bangkal and that they recovered the two pistols used by the suspects.

But the colleagues of Infante, who was then acting chief of the Metro-Setba (Severino, Batangas, Tayabas) Fire Volunteer Brigade, said it was a case of mistaken identity.

They argued that while Infante was a licensed gun owner, he was not the trigger-happy kind or one who would engage in criminal activities.

Outrage over Infante’s death drove his peers to lay siege on the Makati police central station on Ayala Avenue on April 5. They arrived in 20 fire trucks, trained their hoses on the building, and damaged a patrol car.

At Friday’s briefing, Cerbo said footage from a closed-circuit TV camera mounted at an establishment near the site of the shoot-out seemed to support the contention that Infante and Almanon “were mistaken for the suspects in a riding-in-tandem incident.”

He said Bartolome, who had also seen the footage on a TV news program, also ordered the filing of administrative charges against the four policemen.

“What we want to emphasize is that the Philippine National Police is consistent in situations like this. We cooperate and we are open and we will never tolerate any wrongdoing by our policemen, if it is proven,” Cerbo said.