Top Filipino cop cries ‘foul’ over relief order

MANILA: A ranking Philippine National Police (PNP) officer protested his relief following his admission that seven of the nine leaders of an indigenous group allegedly killed in an encounter with government forces in Capiz province in the Visayas last December had tested negative for gunpowder burns.

Colonel Enrique Ancheta said he was relieved as the chief of the PNP regional crime laboratory in the Visayas and placed in a “floating status” without his superiors explaining the reason for the order.

Under police and military parlance, “floating status” means that an officer has been removed from a particular assignment pending investigation of administrative or criminal charges filed against him.

But Ancheta disclosed that a day ater he confirmed to reporters and a radio station the autopsy findings of negative paraffin tests on seven of the nine leaders of the Tumandok tribe in the town of Tapaz, Capiz last Dec. 20, he received the relief order.

He said: “I did not reveal the results and violated protocols. I did not offer the information. I was asked to confirm the information that the radio station already has and replied in the affirmative.”

“We are not hiding anything and we cannot deny the truth,” added Ancheta who admited he has been with the PNP for 30 years.

Nevertheless, he pointed out the negative findings did not mean these were conclusive, or an indication that a person did not fire a gun for a variety of reasons, based on court rulings and expert testimonies.

The killings created a controversy with the police claiming that those slain were suspected members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) who fired at them when they tried to serve search warrants issued by a regional court for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

But families of the victims insisted the victims were unarmed and did not resist when police served them the search warrants.

More than that, they stressed the victims were not communist rebels.