Complainant wants PO1 Estiñoso dismissed

Citing the guilty ruling in an administrative case against PO1 Junicar Estiñoso, the complainant has asked the Police Regional Office 7 to dismiss the policeman from service.

Complainant Mirasol Moody, through her lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo, filed at the PRO-7 a motion to impose the penalty of dismissal from service on Estiñoso.

Moody said that Estiñoso, after being found guilty of conduct unbecoming a police officer, “deserves the penalty of dismissal from service without the possibility of reinstatement.”

Under existing rules and regulations, a policeman “regardless of rank, being adjudged guilty of the above-mentioned offense warrants” the penalty of dismissal, Moody argued.

The case started when Moody complained that Estiñoso physically and psychologically violated her while they were inside her car last March 30.

In her complaint, Moody alleged that Estiñoso forcibly took from her friend the keys of her car, a Honda Civic, while holding on a bulge of a gun from his waist.

She also said that, when they were inside the car, Estiñoso demanded her to pawn her bracelet so that they would have money to buy food.

Moody further alleged that the policeman back-slapped her several times while demanding answers from her on why she went to the National Bureau of Investigation about her former boyfriend.

Moody said that, as the car moved on, she shouted for help from anybody on the street that they passed by.

Then a patrol car and two motorcycles of barangay Carreta blocked their car, giving her the chance to get out quickly and asked for help from patrolling tanods, she said.

Superintendent Melvin Gayotin, the City Police director at the time, issued a memorandum stating that a probable cause existed on Moody’s complaint and that a hearing would be undertaken against Estiñoso.

Estiñoso failed to controvert within the prescribed period these allegations against him, and this prompted Ramon Siscar, the summary hearing officer, to recommend for the imposition of the penalty. 

Siscar also said that Estiñoso’s failure to submit his answer to the complaint, within the reglementary period, was a general denial of the offense charged.

Taking together the evidences of the complainant and her witnesses with the respondent’s failure to refute the charges, Siscar resolved that Estiñoso was “guilty of the offense as charged.” — Joeberth M. Ocao/RAE