SUPT. PATAY (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
Supt. Lito Patay, chief of the Crime and Investigation Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) has been found liable for the death of a minor during a 2016 buy-bust operation in Payatas, Quezon City together with 16 other policemen.
The Philippine National Police Internal Affairs Service (PNP-IAS) found sufficient cause to file charges against Patay, who was the former head of Station 6 of the Batasan police, for grave neglect of duty for “failing to prevent” the abuses committed by his men which led to the killing of 17-year-old Darwin Hamoy.
The “unlawful and unjustifiable” killing of Hamoy was committed by 16 of Patay’s men who were described in the IAS report as “corrupt” and “unworthy to remain in service.”
PNP’s IAS ordered the filing of grave misconduct and grave irregularity cases against SPO3 Carlo Abella; Marvin Merida, Rhodolf Makie and Ralph Pinero, all with the rank of SPO2; SPO1 Ronnie Banggat; Dennis Pal, Richard Timon, Edilberto Vargas and Nonilon Laberon, all with the rank of PO3; and Michael Maderable, Amirudin Ibrahim, Alberto Pombo, Andy Adlawan, Charles Molinos, Herbert Angoluan and Wilson Escuro, all with the rank of PO2.
The IAS found Patay liable for command responsibility for letting Pinero, an SPO2, lead the raid. He was also taken to task for failing to punish his men.
Pinero, Pal, Timon, Maderable, Banggat and Molinos — all anti-drug operatives — were named in a Pulitzer-winning Reuters report as members of the “Davao Boys,” a supposedly handpicked group of deadly operatives. Patay was their alleged leader.
Cebu Daily News tried to reach Supt. Patay for his statement but the CIDG-7 chief did not respond.
Police Regional Director, Chief Supt. Debold Sinas also did not answer CDN’s efforts at reaching him through text or calls.
PNP-AIS began the summary dismissal proceedings against the policemen yesterday (November 21) in what could be the first high profile alleged extrajudicial killing case since the start of President Duterte’s bloody campaign against drugs.
Teens’ slay
Hamoy was killed along with Cherwen Polo, William Bordeos, Sherwin Ternal and a certain “Rambo” during an Aug. 15, 2016, drug raid by Station 6 policemen on the Polos’ house in the village of Payatas B.
In September that year, their relatives — widows, Katrina Polo and Marlyn Bordeos, and mother Mariza Hamoy — challenged police claims before the PNP-IAS and the Office of the Ombudsman that the five victims had engaged police in a gunfight.
The women claimed that the five victims were at the Polos’ house to celebrate Cherwen’s birthday and that they were summarily executed by the team led by Pinero.
In a 10-page report approved on Oct. 17, the IAS said Hamoy’s “detailed narration of facts and circumstances, duly corroborated by Polo and Bordeos, is more convincing than the alibis of the policemen.”
Body in sack
This was a complete turnaround from a July 12 resolution by the Office of the Ombudsman, which ruled that the women’s testimonies “do not deserve credence,” since they were not present during the deadly police operation.
But the IAS ruled that there was sufficient evidence of treachery, which qualified the crime as murder.
It cited a forensic report on Hamoy, which found that he was shot in the lungs, as proof of the “gruesome and merciless killing.”
What the policemen did, the IAS resolution said, was “a clear transgression of established rules.”