Aguirre vows hands off on Kian delos Santos case
RESPONDING TO calls for his inhibition from murder raps against cops in Kian Loyd delos Santos’s killing on Aug. 17, Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II on Monday said: “I will not even touch that case.”
A group of student leaders yesterday joined Senator Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel’s call to Mr. Aguirre to inhibit himself from the murder case against Caloocan City Chief Inspector Amor Cerillo and three other policemen.
Student leaders from the University of the Philippines College of Law and members of the Millennials Against Dictators, also yesterday, criticized Mr. Aguirre’s pronouncements as malicious. “His various statements about the case ( have) shown that he’s already made up his mind about the case. He called Kian’s death overblown and the witnesses ‘ brainwashed.’ All of this, apparently in efforts to continue the war on drugs, a known failure as a policy measure,” they said.
Mr. Delos Santos was killed in the course of an anti-drug campaign in Caloocan City. CCTV footage showed him being accosted by the policemen toward a street corner where he was later shot dead, but the accused cops said they were accosting a police asset, not the boy.
For his part, Mr. Aguirre said in a text message to reporters: “These so-called student leaders are misinformed or ignorant of our procedures at the DoJ,” he said in a text message to reporters.
“At the moment, the prosecutors at the National Prosecution Service will handle it. Even on appeal, I will not handle the case. The cases on appeal are assigned to my [ five Undersecretaries],” he added.