‘Atimonan massacre’ cops granted bail

The massacre site along Maharlika Highway in Atimonan, Quezon province —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

LUCENA CITY—The granting of bail to 12 policemen charged over the alleged rubout of 13 men in Atimonan town in Quezon province in 2013 was a setback in the four-year quest for justice of the victims’ relatives.

“We all cried … The murderers killed our loved ones and their families once again,” Belle Lontok-Evangelista, sister of slain environmentalist Tirso Lontok Jr., said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Lontok was one of 13 men who policemen, led by Supt. Hansel Marantan, allegedly killed at a checkpoint along Maharlika Highway in Atimonan on Jan. 6, 2013.

In a 33-page order on Feb. 28, Judge Liwliwa Hidalgo Bucu of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 34 said government prosecutors failed  to “prove that the evidence of guilt of the accused …  is strong.”

Bucu, however, said her decision to grant the separate petitions for bail filed by the policemen was issued “without prejudice” to the case for multiple murder, a nonbailable offense, as she did not rule on the merits of the case.

“Taken altogether, the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses and the evidence thus far presented are not sufficient to prove that the evidence of guilt of the accused for the crime charged is strong,” Bucu said in her order.

“Just like how the other families felt, I was also shattered when I heard the news,” Lontok’s widow, Marife, said in a telephone interview.

The Lontok family had been in touch with at least six families, whose relatives were among those killed in Atimonan.

Evangelista said the victims’ relatives were losing hope that they would still attain justice.

Allowed to post a bail of P300,000 were Marantan,  Supt. Ramon Balauag, Chief Insp. Grant Gollod and Senior Inspectors John Paolo Carracedo and Timoteo Orig.

The order also covered  SPO3 Joselito de Guzman, Senior Police Officers 1 Carlo Cataquiz and Arturo Sarmiento, PO3 Eduardo Oronan, PO2 Nelson Indal and Police Officers 1 Wryan Sardea and Rodel Talento.

Marantan, then deputy intelligence chief of the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) regional police, was the team leader of the police operation officially called “Coplan: Armado.”

The target of the operation was Victor “Vic” Siman, a suspected operator of the illegal numbers game “jueteng,” who was then traveling with 12 other men aboard two vehicles on his way to Calamba City from Camarines Norte province.

Marantan claimed Siman and his companions opened fire when the group was flagged down in a checkpoint manned by policemen and government soldiers.

He said Siman and the others were members of an illegal gambling and guns-for-hire syndicate operating in southern Luzon.

The Calabarzon police claimed the incident was a shootout, but the National Bureau of Investigation concluded that it was a rubout after it found no evidence of an exchange of gunfire as alleged by Marantan.

Bianca Marie Lontok, Lontok’s eldest daughter, said: “We’re all so helpless now. We’re leaving everything to the Lord to give justice for the death of my father.”

“The evidence was not weak… All victims were… shot in the head,” she said.