Broker’s kin: administrative charges good, but murder raps better

Passengers glance at the bullet-riddled vehicle of suspected criminals along a road in the town of Atimonan in Quezon province, about 140 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Manila, Philippines late Sunday Jan. 6, 2013. Philippine army special forces and police killed 13 suspected criminals in a gunbattle Sunday in the latest violence to erupt in the country in the past week. AP FILE PHOTO

SAN PEDRO, Laguna, Philippines—The family of slain real estate broker Paul Arcedillo Quiohilag welcomed the decision of the Philippine National Police to file administrative charges against the 22 policemen involved in the January 6 Atimonan operation but urged that the government’s punitive action should go beyond that.

“That’s good news, a first step to get justice,” Quiohilag’s sister, Rodelia Claridad, said in a text message. “But we hope criminal charges would follow very soon, a murder case.”

Claridad earlier said that the only reason her brother was with the group of alleged gambling lord Victor “Vic” Siman, who was also killed in the same operation, was to sell a condominium unit and insurance policies as Quiohilag, from Biñan City in Laguna, was also an agent of an insurance company.

The family denied the police’s claim that Quiohilag and the 12 others killed in the alleged encounter in Quezon were into illegal activities.

On Thursday, PNP Director General Alan Purisima approved the recommendation of the PNP Internal Affairs Service to administratively charge the 22 policemen involved in the Atimonan shooting, including three ranking officers, after it found lapses in the police operation concerning jurisdiction, prescribed uniform, composition and marked vehicles.

But Claridad feared that the ongoing investigation into the Atimonan case would end up just like previous cases involving law enforcers in questionable police operations who went unpunished.

She cited particularly cases involving Superintendent Hansel Marantan, the ground commander of the joint police-military operation in Atimonan that turned into a bloodbath and the lone law enforcer wounded in the alleged shootout.

Marantan, among those to be administratively charged even as he remained confined in a hospital, was found to have been at the center of controversial police operations such as the November 2005 alleged rubout in Pasig City; the December 2008 police operation in Parañaque City that left 16 people dead; and the supposed encounter with eight suspected kidnappers in Candelaria town in Quezon in February 2010.

“It seemed that these policemen were either only placed on a floating status (not given assignments) or promoted to higher positions. This practice has to stop,” Claridad said.