Killers of Villaruel, Catchillar face murder raps — lawyer

The family of former Air Transportation Office (ATO) chief Panfilo Villaruel will file murder charges against policemen who killed him and his aide, Navy Lt. (sg) Ricardo Catchillar, last Nov. 8.

"It is now clear that what the (Philippine National Police) Aviation Security Group (ASG) did to Captain Villaruel and his aide was murder," Villaruel family lawyer Eduardo Escueta told reporters yesterday.

"They did not have to kill them, much less murder them," he said after hearing the testimony of ASG chief Senior Superintendent Andres Caro Jr. and other concerned officials who appeared for the second time before two Senate committees looking into the airport control tower takeover on Nov. 7.

But Caro said it was Villaruel and his aide who "fired first which initiated the reaction from the assault team."

In a statement, Caro said the ASG was "at a clear disadvantage to a prepositioned and well-entrenched adversary who had complete knowledge of the physical structure for the facility they had illegally occupied."

He said that the ASG team observed a "lull for a few minutes after the first assault with the hope that Captain Villaruel and party may now offer to surrender (but) no offer came."

Human Rights Commission officer-in-charge Wilhelm Soriano agreed with Escueta that the assault team was criminally liable.

Soriano said he thinks the Villaruel family has sufficient ground to file murder charges against policemen who killed the former ATO chief and Catchillar.

The two, who took over the airport control tower on the night of Nov. 7, were killed by ASG members in the early hours of Nov. 8 when the government decided to retake the tower.

President Arroyo has vowed to stand by the policemen who recovered the control tower.

Senate President Franklin Drilon and Senators Francis Pangilinan and Rodolfo Biazon have earlier said the policemen who were ordered to retake the tower used excessive force.

Caro told the Senate committee on justice and defense that based on intelligence reports and an interview with Arnold Clavio of radio station dzBB, "we assumed that our targets were armed to the teeth."

He said Villaruel himself told him in a brief cellular phone conversation that the former ATO chief had guns and explosives and dissuaded them from going near the control tower or retaking it.

He said Villaruel also gave the impression that he had several armed men with him in the tower and its vicinity.

Caro said in assaulting the tower and recovering it, his men made sure that their targets did not have the chance to detonate explosives that they claimed they had.

So when they saw that Villaruel and Catchillar, who had been felled by the initial burst of fire, were still moving, they had to finish them off, he added.

He pointed out that his men mistook for an explosive or a triggering device a cellular phone that the former ATO chief was holding and was apparently using in the interview with Clavio.

Caro, who led the assault team, said that "by the records of the events, including evidence, it was clear that the party of Captain Villaruel fired the first shots which initiated the reaction from the assault team."

He added, "armed confrontation in close quarters under total darkness is very difficult, especially under threat of explosion and with the adversary in the vantage position. In this kind of situation, is it necessary that a police officer should die, just to satisfy shooting at an armed enemy?"

Caro also submitted jurisprudence and expert testimony declaring that "negative findings from a paraffin test do not mean that the subject has not fired a gun."

Biazon, a former Armed Forces chief and Marines commander, said Villaruel and Catchillar were finished off at close range.

During the hearing, Anacleto Venturina, head of ATO’s airport control services division, said they were able to establish a back-up tower that handled about 120 incoming and outgoing flights, including one that brought Mrs. Arroyo to Cebu, while the main tower was being assaulted.

His testimony prompted Drilon and his colleagues to remark that the government did not have to rush the recovery of the control tower.

Concerned officials should have given more time for negotiations and for Villaruel and Catchillar to surrender, which they indicated they were ready to do in the Clavio interview, they said.

Biazon also noted lapses in the enforcement of procedures, given the fact that the former ATO chief was allowed to stay in the control tower beyond 4 p.m., the deadline he was allowed to do his "research."

ATO officials said they did not suspect that their former chief was up to something other than research, and that they allowed him to stay on "out of courtesy to our former boss, who served the country well."

No Shoot-To-Kill Order

In his statement, Caro explained that when the security team was ordered by the Crisis Management Group to retake the tower, it was understood that the order did not carry with it the "instruction to shoot to kill, but rather... to avoid bloodshed through a voluntary surrender without armed resistance."

However, Caro stressed that the "biggest responsibility of the leader of a raiding team is the safety of its members. The team must always protect itself and must not take any chances."

Once negotiations failed, Caro said "a leader could no longer second-guess or hesitate. Every split second counts and indecisiveness would have meant death for somebody in the raiding team, which is not acceptable... Nobody knew for sure what was behind that steel door."

Caro said "if the alternative is the potential for a greater loss of life, hard choices have to be made."

He regretted that the police are now being placed under investigation because of the incident.

"When a similar situation will again occur, they (police) may act with great hesitance ... for fear of a legal backlash as a result of the performance of a lawful duty," he said.