A video that showed the former police chief of Carmona, Cavite province, Chief Insp. Jigger Noceda, hitting the arms and hands of robbery suspect Marlon Man-onan with a wooden plank resulted in Noceda’s relief and the filing of charges of grave misconduct and violation of the Anti-Torture Act against him.
The cellphone video was taken by a “concerned citizen” who happened to be at the Carmona police precinct at the time.
If only a “concerned citizen” had been around to record what happened to 11-year-old Chastity Mirabiles, a child beggar who collapsed and died a day after she and several street kids were rounded up and detained by the Fuente police in Cebu City on Easter Sunday, April 6.
More than a month after Mirabiles died from “blunt force injuries” in her body, allegedly inflicted by Fuente policemen, what has happened to the investigation?
We hope the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) makes good on its promise to pursue the truth and serve justice for her family.
Chief Insp. Wildemar Tiu, former Fuente precinct police chief, is due back from his month-long vacation leave soon in early June. A lone child witness was already interviewed by the NBI, social workers and key City Hall officials, who were aghast at the minor’s account. Tiu, however, wasn’t identified by the young witness as the one who beat up Chastity or gave her electric shock treatment.
Under the principle of command responsibility, the goings-on in the Fuente station and how they conduct the “Libod Suroy” program – intended to “rescue” minors from the dangers of life on the street and petty crimes – have to be explained by Tiu.
One of his staff, PO3 Mae Lauglaug who heads the women’s desk, already apologized in a case conference that she had failed to inform social workers and family members of minors held in their custody.
That’s an act of omission. But who maltreated Chastity? And were there other street children who suffered?
The NBI hinted that it has sufficient basis to bring a charge of murder against several respondents. We await their results to see which of the 15 policemen on duty on Easter Sunday will be held to account.
City Hall’s social welfare office has brought out Chastity’s ordeal as one of three cases of “children who have been victims of police brutality committed by law enforcers of Station 2” in Fuente Osmeña.
Chastity was sleeping on the street after a night of begging when she was arrested at dawn.
Three other girls aged 7, 13 and 14 , were rounded up the next day. For their “crime” of caroling inside a jeepney along Osmeña Boulevard, they were placed in the Fuente station detention cell with male inmates. Their heads were forcibly shaved and they were made to take a bath “in an open bathroom where the male prisoners can see them”.
Humiliation. Beating. Electric shock. Detention.
Is this the way to clear the streets of juvenile offenders?
No sanctions have been meted by PNP headquarters or City Hall. The silence is disturbing.
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