PNP tells House probe: No secret detention cell, torture

Lawmakers grilled yesterday Philippine National Police (PNP) officials over the supposed secret detention facility in at the Raxabago Police Station in Tondo, Manila last month.

During the public hearing, Senior Superintendent Romeo Sta. Ana Jr. of the National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO) Regional Internal Affairs Service who led the probe into the incident, denied it was a secret detention facility and referred to it as a “temporary holding area” for suspects.

Sta. Ana also said his investigation showed that the detainees were not tortured.

Misamis Occidental Rep. Henry Oaminal, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Correctional Reforms, led the lawmakers in questioning the PNP officials, but it was Compostela Rep. Ruwel Peter Gonzaga who chided Sta. Ana for failing to include in his report allegations that the drug suspects were supposedly detained until their families came up with the amounts ranging from

140,000 to 1200,000. Sta. Ana said they did not conduct an investigation on those allegations because the only focus of their probe was the issue of a “secret detention facility” and whether the suspects were tortured.

He later admitted that the condition in the detention cell is “below par” of human living conditions “because of congestion.”

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