Eleven of the 12 Caloocan City policemen and two civilian informants facing robbery charges for conducting an illegal house raid last year have posted bail.
The case against the former members of the Police Community Precinct (PCP) 4 was raffled off to the sala of Judge Lorenza Bordios of the Caloocan Regional Trial Court Branch 126 on Monday.
The judge issued arrest warrants against the accused on Wednesday, prompting 11 of them to post bail of P20,000 each.
Charged with violating Section 299 (b) of the Revised Penal Code were PCP 4 commander Chief Insp. Timothy Aniway Jr., Senior Insp. Warren Peralta and Police Officers 1 Sherwin Rivera, Louie Serrano, Marvin Poblete, Jay Gabata, Jaime Natividad, Ariel Furio, Jay-R Sabangan, Michael Angelo Miguel, Francis Quidic and Sampang Sampurna Jr.
Except for Aniway, all of them have posted bail.
The civilian informants, Mark Andrada and John Paul Narrido, remain at large.
In a resolution dated Jan. 5, the Department of Justice recommended the filing of charges against the respondents who conducted an unauthorized raid on the house of Gina Erobas in Barangay 188 on Sept. 7, 2017.
The PCP 4 officers claimed the raid was part of their “Oplan Galugad” mission in the area. But security footage taken by a closed-circuit television camera in Erobas’ house showed the policemen and their civilian informants ransacking the house and taking valuables worth P30,000.
The raid, together with the killings of teenagers Kian Loyd delos Santos, Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman allegedly during antidrug and anticriminality operations, triggered a firestorm of criticism against the city police that led to the relief of almost the entire force in September. —KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING