PNP starts probe of officer for illegal detention of Inquirer editor

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The Regional Internal Affairs Service (RIAS) of the Southern Mindanao police has started tackling the administrative charge that the Philippine Daily Inquirer Assistant Bureau Chief Allan Nawal filed against the police chief of Digos City for arbitrary detention.

The case stemmed from Superintendent Joe Neil Rojo’s order to have Nawal locked up at the Digos City police detention cell on July 13, 2013, despite the lack of charges.

A similar charge, which is criminal in nature, has also been filed by Nawal against Rojo before the Ombudsman.

Superintendent Pedro Cabatingan, RIAS 11 deputy director, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that they have summoned Rojo to answer all the charges that Nawal had brought up against him.

“The summon was sent out last December,” he said.

The Inquirer learned that Rojo, who has not returned to his post even after serving a suspension order for a distinct and separate case, has not responded to the summon so far.

In both the administrative and criminal cases he had filed against the police officer, Nawal said that when he was taken into police custody on the night of July 12, 2013, there was no information he was being arrested.

“There was no clear information. I was told I was being invited to the police station on Rojo’s behest,” he said.

Nawal said prior to being arrested, at least two mobile patrol vehicles came to his house purportedly to verify a report about a gunfire.

He said he never fired any shot on that day and had told another police officer he was going later to the police station to clear his name.

Nawal said he even volunteered to bring with him his licensed gun – still covered by a travel permit – so he could submit it to ballistic tests and that he was also volunteering to undergo a paraffin test.

“Barely had I come out of our gate on board my Suzuki Vitara when my path was blocked by a patrol car belonging to the Digos City police office,” he told the Inquirer.

He said the patrol officer, identified as Chief Inspector Val Carillo, approached him and asked him nicely if he was bringing any gun. Nawal said he had readily turned over the gun because that was his intention in the first place in bringing it.

At the police station, Nawal said nobody would directly answer his question if he was being arrested because if such was the case, he could have easily contacted a lawyer as it was still past 8 p.m. of January 12.

At dawn of July 13, he said Rojo summoned him to his office and made several statements unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.

Aside from accusing him of being a drug lord, for which the police officer could not produce any charge for, Rojo also told him he “must be big-time because colonel so and so had called me up asking me to have mercy on you.”

Nawal said he had repeatedly told Rojo that he could not have been possibly a drug lord and that he had no previous record with the police.

Nawal had come under threat prior to his arrest – with Inquirer Davao del Sur correspondent Orlando Dinoy.

He said he and Dinoy agreed that the Inquirer’s unrelenting campaign against illegal gambling in late 2012, which led to the demolition of betting stations in the said city, was the main reason he was being targeted by lawless elements.

“And to make it easier to kill me, they had caged me as a drug lord,” Nawal said.

Nawal said Rojo clearly ignored his previous police blotter of an armed intrusion into his compound on July 9.

“The police who are supposed to protect my life are the ones pinning me down. It is quite unfortunate that while I am the one being threatened, I was the one who landed in jail, not those who tried to invade my house,” Nawal said.

“If we find probable cause, then the proper punishment will be meted out,” Cabatingan assured.

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