Probe of beating of ailing man by policemen sought

Consolacion Police chief Claro Benatiro yesterday called for an investigation of an incident Saturday when his 51-year-old relative got ill inside a cinema in downtown Colon but was beaten up allegedly by responding policemen instead of being taken to a hospital.

The victim, Benjamin Dublin, from Tapilon in Daanbantayan, was watching a movie that day in a cinema in Colon when he felt pain on his chest. He immediately asked help from security guard Richard Olmos who in turn dialed hotline number 166 or the Mobile Patrol Group for assistance.

Shortly after a police car arrived and two men put Dublin inside then left supposedly to take him to the Cebu City Medical Center. Other than those who got Dublin, nobody went with him. His two female relatives who also arrived at the scene did not board the police car, saying they will just follow him to the hospital. But Dublin, who is now treated at CCMC, did not reach the hospital with the responding policemen that day, as expected. He got there only yesterday morning and worse with bruises, which he claimed he suffered from the beatings the alleged policemen did to him.

Dublin said the two men in the police car brought him near a bridge in barangay Tejero where he was beaten up and thrown out of the car. He said he fainted from the beatings and woke up abandoned yesterday morning. He claimed crawling to a nearby house for help.

Both the security guard and Dublin failed to identify the two men, and Dublin's only description of one of them was dark-skinned and heavy-built. They also forgot the body number of the MPG car used in taking him.

Dublin, working as a flower vendor, is a close relative of Benatiro who yesterday said that an immediate investigation be conducted on the matter.

City Police acting director Melvin Gayotin yesterday said the MPG relayed to him that no such incident took place last Saturday. "No such thing happened as per information from MPG. It was a sick person alarm and when responded by MPG the person was dead drunk and was brought to hospital," Gayotin told The Freeman via text message.

Benatiro said the incident was never recorded in the MPG blotter but he vowed that, as soon as Dublin files the complaint, he would ask Gayotin for an identification line-up of all MPG personnel on duty at the time of the alleged incident. Nevertheless, Gayotin said he would conduct further investigation about the allegations of Dublin. - Ryan P. Borinaga