9 cops in Mandaluyong shooting out on bail

Senior Supt. Florendo Quibuyen, head of the Special Investigation Task Group and director of operation of the Eastern Police District (Photo by JODEE A. AGONCILLO / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

The nine Mandaluyong police officers who were charged with homicide and frustrated homicide raps after firing at the wrong van and killing two of its passengers and wounding two others in December last year are now out on bail, according to Senior Supt. Florendo Quibuyen, head of the Special Investigation Task Group and director for operations of the Eastern Police District.

On Monday, Quibuyen said Police Officers 1 Jave Arellano, Alberto Buag, Mark Castillo, Tito Danao, Kim Tibunsay, Bryan Nicolas, Julius Libuen, Alfred Uribe and PO2 Nel Songalia had been released from detention after posting bail of P25,600 each – or 20 percent of P128,000 – last Friday.

The P128,000 bail – P40,000 each for two counts of homicide and P24,000 each for two counts of frustrated homicide – was recommended by Mandaluyong City Prosecutor Bernabe Augustus Solis.

The police officers had been under restrictive custody at the National Capital Regional Police Office since Saturday.

Quibuyen said the police officers from the Mandaluyong City Police Office and the Eastern Police District chipped in to pay the total bail bond (P230,400) for the temporary liberty of the nine policemen.

“If the bail will still be from their pockets, they do not have the capacity,” Quibuyen said. “Kawawa naman sila [They’re pitiful]. The incident happened in the performance of duty. They did not intend to kill. Some of them were traumatized as well. That’s additional burden for them.”

Meanwhile, Senior Insp. Maria Cristina Vasquez, the head of the nine accused police officers, underwent preliminary investigation Monday and remained under the restrictive custody of Supt. Enrique Agtarap, acting Mandaluyong police chief.

Last Dec. 28, a group of watchmen from Addition Hills and later a responding police team chased and fired at a Mitsubishi Adventure which they thought was carrying gunmen from an earlier shooting incident.

It turned out that the vehicle, which was shot at least 36 times, was taking a wounded woman to the hospital.

Killed were Jonalyn Amba-an, who already had a gunshot wound from the earlier attack, and Jomar Hayawon.

Two other persons in the vehicle – Danilo Santiago and Eliseo Aluad – were also hit in the chase that ended in Barangay Pleasant Hills.

Quibuyen said the recently released autopsy results showed that Jonalyn Amba-an died of multiple gunshot wounds in the head and lower extremities – the most fatal was the gunshot wound in the head, which, according to the Scene of the Crime Operatives and witnesses, was inflicted not by police officers and watchmen but by his live-in partner, Eliseo Aluad.

Aluad remains confined at the Mandaluyong City Medical Center.

His relatives detest the homicide case filed against Aluad who was recently tagged by Mandaluyong police as main suspect in Amba-an’s death.

Quibuyen said they had not seen the results of the ballistic and trajectory examination to determine the degree of liability of the accused police officers. /atm