ILLEGALLY ARRESTED?

Police hit NFSW for ‘deceiving’ statement, clarify minor-survivor under custody for security reason

A MINOR who survived the massacre of nine farmers in Bulanon village Sagay City on October 20 was not arrested.

This was stressed yesterday by Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Castil Jr., director of Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (Nocppo), after the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) posted an alert on their Facebook page that the minor-survivor was “illegally arrested” yesterday morning.

NFSW said that lawyer Kathy Panguban of the National Union of People’s Lawyer was set to assist the minor’s grandparents to turn him over after being held in the custody of the City Social Welfare and Development.

But the minor was “illegally arrested” by the Sagay City Police Station, NFSW said.

The provincial police slammed the statement of NFSW, claiming that “the grandparents mentioned by the NFSW who were supposed to fetch the survivor were not legitimate grandparents of his.”

Thus, the statement of NFSW was meant to deceive the public and disrupt the investigation, the police added.

Castil questioned why NFSW would look for the minor. “Why would they attempt to get him from the authorities?”

He said the minor-survivor was placed under the custody of Sagay City Police Station since October 20 for safekeeping.

A personnel of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) visits the survivor at the police station for debriefing and assistance, he added.

Senior Inspector Aireen Cordua, public information officer of Nocppo, said the minor was earlier turned over to the DSWD with the consent of his father, who was present during the talk, to help him recover from the traumatic incident.

However, they refused to divulge the current location of the minor for security reason.

The provincial police official also said that getting the statement of the survivor is part of the investigation.

On October 20, nine NFSW members were shot dead by not less than 10 unidentified men armed with high-powered firearms at Hacienda Nene. Three of them were partially burned.

Police are looking at three angles in the incident.

Castil said “everyone is a suspect,” but their investigation focuses on the two other survivors, excluding the minor, who were reportedly not at the makeshift tent when the incident happened.

They allegedly recruited the nine farmers to join the organization prior to the incident and even invited them for a meeting on the same day that the massacre happened at the said village.

But the two alleged recruiters earlier denied the allegations, claiming there was no recruitment and that they all went together to the said place on Saturday.

The evidence and the investigation initially lead to the two survivors, who reportedly went to a nearby hut to charge their cellular phones coincidentally when the shooting incident happened, Castil said.

However, Castil said they cannot arrest the two survivors but they were under investigation.

“They can be invited for questioning but it’s also their right not to appear,” he added,

Castil said they are also trying to establish if the incident was an alleged “set-up.”

He said they will try to solve the case through a fair investigation within a month or even earlier.*