Sexual assault vs NBI agents?
“Even if the complaint is now pending before the Ombudsman for filing before the Sandiganbayan, if so warranted by the evidence to be proffered, we bet Remulla’s interest would be sufficiently piqued to look into this.
“recently The mother filed criminal and administrative charges against agents of the National Bureau of Investigation for allegedly torturing and filing trumpedup charges against her sons.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla has an unenviable job under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in that he inherited a very problematic agency in the Bureau of Corrections.
To Remulla’s credit, he has refused to engage sacked BuCor chief Gerald Bantag in a word war after the latter was tagged in the twin murders of broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa and purported New Bilibid Prison gang leader Jun Villamor.
With the charges against Bantag already filed before the appropriate bodies, a sense of normalcy is slowly coming back at the NBP under BuCor officer-in-charge Gregorio Catapang Jr. The same can be said of the other penal facilities across the country now under Catapang’s stewardship.
Aside from the killing of Mabasa and Villamor — the “middleman” or the one who allegedly contracted selfconfessed killer Joel Escorial to silence the journalist — Bantag is also being held accountable for allegedly stabbing and wounding two other NBP detainees.
Insofar as Bantag and the above-cited cases are concerned, the wheels of justice — slow they may be in turning judgement by the mountains of pending cases before the courts across the country — should be allowed to roll unimpeded.
The same should hold true about the disturbing allegation raised by the mother of two suspects tagged in the perplexing and still unsolved disappearance of over two dozen cockfighting enthusiasts dating back to the past dispensation.
The mother recently filed criminal and administrative charges against agents of the National Bureau of Investigation for allegedly torturing and filing trumped-up charges against her sons, whom she claimed were police informants.
In her 12-page complaint-affidavit before the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman, Joyce Manio accused several agents belonging to the NBI Task Force Against Illegal Drugs of violating the Anti-Torture Act of 2009 and the provision penalizing the planting of evidence under Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act. She also accused them of grave coercion, serious dishonesty, oppression, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service. But what takes the cake among the cases
filed against the agents is the accusation that some of them sexually assaulted the two.
Yes, the NBI agents were also charged criminally before the Ombudsman for sexual assault under paragraph two of RA 8353 or the Anti-Rape Law of 1997. That last charge may be so odd as to merit the attention of Secretary Remulla as the NBI is a bureau being overseen by the Department of Justice.
Even if the complaint is now pending before the Ombudsman for filing before the Sandiganbayan, if so warranted by the evidence to be proffered, we bet Remulla’s interest would be sufficiently piqued to look into this.
But if the past actions of Remulla would be any gauge, he’d surely give the Ombudsman all the room it needs to see if the complaints against his men and women at the NBI have legal legs to stand on.
We can expect Remulla to even order his men to fully cooperate in the investigation of the Ombudsman lest the NBI itself, as an institution, get its reputation damaged by unchallenged allegations like the one raised by Ms. Manio. The NBI, it should be pointed out, has as its credo: Nobility, Bravery and Integrity.
Presently, the DoJ is in the process of hiring
1,000 agents for the NBI and any unsavory characterizations of those already employed by the agency can only put off potential recruits. The allegations, thus, impact not only the agents against whom the complaints were filed but on the NBI itself.
Has Boying’s interest been sufficiently aroused?