2 in crusader’s slay cops no more

SAN PEDRO CITY — The two police officers charged with the murder of an anticrime crusader in Oriental Mindoro province had been removed from the service, according to a police spokesperson.

Magdalino Pimentel and Markson Almeranez, who had been indicted for the murder of anticrime watchdog leader Zenaida Luz, are no longer police officers. Pimentel was stripped of his senior inspector rank while Almeranez lost his rank of inspector.

Out on bail

Their dismissal came almost a year after the murder was committed.

The two, however, are out after the court handling the murder case against them allowed them to post a total of P1 million in bail.

Chief Supt. Wilben Mayor, regional police director in Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan (Mimaropa) provinces, signed the four-page resolution dated Aug. 2 that found Pimentel and Almeranez liable for grave misconduct, according to Mimaropa police spokesperson Supt. Imelda Tolentino.

Pimentel, formerly assigned to the provincial public safety company, and Almeranez, former police chief of Socorro town, Oriental Mindoro, had also been found guilty of the attempted murder of fellow officers, illegal possession of firearms and conduct unbecoming of officers.

‘Weaken their grit’

The family of Luz has yet to see the dismissal order but a spokesperson for the family said it was a welcome development.

Richard Albert, partner of Luz, said he felt depressed after he learned about the bail granted to the two ex-policemen.

The dismissal order, he said in a phone interview, “somehow weakens their grit.”

Luz was head of the anticrime watchdog Citizens Crime Watch in Mimaropa when she was gunned down near her home in the town of Gloria on Oct. 9, 2016.

A team of policemen from the town caught up with the motorcycle-riding assailants who shot it out with the Gloria policemen and turned out to be Pimentel and Almeranez.

Wounded but alive

Pimentel and Almeranez suffered nonfatal wounds in the gunfight with fellow policemen.

Supt. William Destura, chief of the Oriental Mindoro Philippine National Police Internal Affairs Division, said that while Pimentel and Almeranez had been found to be in the scene of the crime, there had been no sufficient proof yet that they were the ones who shot Luz.

Did not match

He said the bullets used in assassinating Luz did not match the weapons recovered from the two former policemen.

Judge Daniel C. Villanueva of the Manila regional trial court, who granted bail to the two accused, said evidence submitted so far “do not appear to be strong.”