The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will expand its investigation of the killing of 13 people in an alleged shootout between government security forces and alleged criminals in Quezon province on Sunday and look into the role in the incident of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC).
The Inquirer reported on Friday that the police operation against the alleged criminals was approved by the PAOCC.
The anticrime superbody—composed of 10 security, law enforcement and intelligence departments and agencies—is chaired by Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.
Ochoa on Friday denied approving the operation and pledged the full cooperation of the commission with the NBI investigation.
In an interview in Malacañang on Friday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the role of the PAOCC “should be looked into by the NBI, definitely, because one of the core questions that should be [answered] is, What was that mission all about?”
“The directive of the President is to conduct a full, thorough, exhaustive and credible investigation. He really wants to know the truth. We will have to ascertain the facts and determine and seek the truth. What exactly was that incident? What really happened?” De Lima said.
Marantan’s cases
“The President wants to get to the bottom of things and even the exact record of Supt. [Hansel] Marantan—that should be looked into, as well. We are going to review all those alleged cases or similar incidents [where] Superintendent Marantan has been involved. That is definitely part of the inquiry,” De Lima said, referring to the leader of the police team at the joint police-military checkpoint at a stretch of Maharlika Highway in Barangay Lumutan, Atimonan town, Quezon province, where the alleged shootout happened.
In a talk with reporters on Wednesday, President Aquino said the initial report on the shootout was inconsistent with what was later discovered at the scene.
Mr. Aquino said he ordered the NBI to find out what really happened.
De Lima has other questions.
“First, what was the background of that mission? Who authorized it? And then what exactly is that mission?” she said.
De Lima said newspapers were running “varying speculations … although it has been widely reported that it has something to do with the illegal numbers game … [a] jueteng turf war.”
She was referring to the numbers racket “jueteng” and to the supposed rivalry between two illegal gambling syndicates that led to the alleged shootout.
Formal channels
De Lima told reporters that she did not ask Ochoa, who like her was at the vin d’honneur, the traditional New Year’s reception in the Palace, about “Coplan Armado,” the police case operational plan (coplan) that led to the alleged shootout, because sensitive issues should not be discussed informally, but through “formal channels.”
According to De Lima, the NBI is now tracing the routes taken by the group of alleged southern Luzon jueteng operator Victor “Vic” Siman that led it to Atimonan and the alleged shootout.
Siman and 12 others, including three policemen and three soldiers, were killed in what the Quezon police reported as a shootout between police and soldiers and the group of alleged guns for hire at the checkpoint.
Ochoa’s denial
De Lima said the NBI investigation would look into the Inquirer’s report that the PAOCC approved “Coplan Armado.”
“I think it should be easy to verify from the PAOCC whether that was an operation that has been sanctioned or not by the PAOCC. And then, if it’s sanctioned by the PAOCC, what kind of operation it was,” she said.
She noted, however, that Ochoa had denied approving the operation.
In an interview with the Inquirer on Friday, Supt. Glenn Dumlao, “Coplan Armado” supervisor, said the operation had PAOCC approval, but not funding.
But the operation would have proceeded even without PAOCC approval because it was the mandate of the police to go after illegal gambling, Dumlao said.
Dumlao is deputy chief of the Regional Public Safety Battalion of the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) police, where “Coplan Armado” had originated.
Asked if “Coplan Armado” was an unauthorized operation, De Lima did not give a categorical answer.
“We will have to verify that because somebody must have authorized that unless Superintendent Marantan just concocted [the claim of a shootout],” De Lima said.
Regional level
“But it’s supposed to be a mission, and if it is a mission, it’s either an authorized mission, or unauthorized mission. So, if it is not an authorized mission, then it will be at the level only of Superintendent Marantan,” De Lima said.
If this were the case, she said, “then we would ask him what was his basis [for the operation] if no superior had authorized that mission.”
Senior Supt. Ranier Idio, PAOCC deputy executive director, said in a radio interview on Friday that the mission was not sanctioned by the commission.
But the Calabarzon police could proceed with the operation on the regional level because “it is in their mandate to cooperate against organized crimes in their area.”
Chief Supt. Reginald Villasanta, PAOCC executive director, also said the operation had no approval of the commission.
How the operation proceeded despite denial of the proposal is now being investigated, Villasanta said.
Trap
The NBI investigative team in Atimonan has found that Siman and his group entered into a trap.
The investigators said on Thursday that three checkpoints had been set up between Plaridel town and Atimonan.
“Whatever was the purpose, it was clear the stretch where the checkpoints were set up was a trap, and were prepared for the victims alone,’’ according to Virgilio Mendez, NBI deputy director for regional services.
Mendez said the initial conclusion was based on the accounts of some participants in the operation, witnesses the investigators had interviewed, and inspection of the site.
“This finding is already a part of the final initial result of the investigation. There was no question about it,’’ he said.
Mendez said the victims were lured to the second checkpoint when they were allowed to pass through the first.
The investigators have also learned that a briefing attended by Army soldiers and policemen before the operation was conducted by Marantan, deputy chief of the Calabarzon police intelligence group.
Mendez said the military took part in the operation because of a request for support from the police.
State witnesses
Another NBI official who asked not to be named said the soldiers who took part in the operation may be asked to serve as state witnesses.
“If they could establish they were the least guilty and were misinformed of the objective of the operation then they could be state witnesses,” the source said.
NBI Death Investigation Division executive officer Danielito Lalucis said eight of the victims had been autopsied anew and the results would be released next week.
Lalucis said the police had submitted some of the evidence they have gathered. With a report from Nancy Carvajal