Liddawa case gets new hearing officer

The Police Regional Office-7 will not be assigning a graduate of the Philippine National Police Academy as the hearing officer for the summary dismissal proceedings against Sr. Insp. Jose Liddawa Jr. after the original summary hearing officer filed a motion to inhibit from the case.

Police Regional Office-7 director, Chief Supt. Ronald Roderos told reporters that Chief Insp. Henry Biñas, originally ordered to be the hearing officer, filed a motion against it to avoid being suspected of bias.

Biñas was once a colleague of Liddawa in the operations branch of the Cebu City Police Office in 1999 and he also graduated from Philippine National Police Academy where Liddawa also schooled.

Roderos said, they will be asking Sr. Insp. Troy Warren Cayanan from Negros Oriental to serve as summary hearing officer of Liddawa’s case.

Cayanan is a lawyer who joined the police service by lateral entry and was assigned to the PNP Legal Service in Region 6. The PRO-7 have already put Liddawa under a 45-day suspension after he drove drunk and hit an ABS-CBN news vehicle then brawled with the news crew last September 18.

Two of the news crew, cameraman Joel Noel and reporter Ramil Paican have also been fired by ABS-CBN management for withholding the whole video footage of the incident that actually included the mauling of Liddawa and his cousin.

The whole footage was shown after Liddawa’s counsel Noel Archival filed a complaint before the management of ABS-CBN that it was his client who was mauled by the news crew.  — Edwin Ian Melecio/BRP