PNP orders TMG to speed up probe of Ortigas slays

Philippine National Police chief Director General Arturo Lomibao has ordered the Traffic Management Group (TMG) to speed up its fact-finding investigation into the Nov. 7 killing of three suspected carjackers by TMG operatives in Pasig City.

Lomibao reportedly summoned and met Saturday with the TMG fact-finding team led by its deputy director Senior Superintendent Luisito Maralit to personally follow up on the status of the investigation of the shootout between suspected car thieves and plainclothes TMG operatives of Task Force Limbas.

According to a source, Lomibao "wants the result of the investigation as soon as possible, as he believes the longer the probe drags on, the more the public will think that the PNP condones the wrongdoing of its men."

According to earlier reports, the results of the TMG investigation were submitted to Lomibao’s office Friday night and might be announced in a press conference today.

However, Maralit said in an interview with The STAR that the investigation has not been concluded. He said a lot of information is still coming in that has yet to be considered.

Maralit also said he has yet to get the affidavits of the 10 TMG operatives involved in the shootout with suspects Brian Dulay, Antonio Cu-Unjieng and Francis Xavier Manzano.

Observers criticized the manner by which the TMG is conducting its investigation into the shootout after Maralit said the TMG is focusing on the video footage of the TMG operative shooting the apparently helpless suspects which had been taken by a UNTV cameraman.

Maralit was unable to rate the status of the investigation, which was conducted on Lomibao’s orders that the TMG look into the possibility that its operatives’ violated the rules of engagement and operational procedures.

The UNTV footage showed a TMG operative shooting the suspects even when they appeared to be incapacitated or dead after the shootout.

The video showed Dulay was still alive after the shootout and that he was shot four more times by a TMG operative.

TMG director Chief Superintendent Augusto Angcanan said the operation was legitimate after several of the suspected car thieves’ victims surfaced.

The PNP Crime Laboratory earlier established that two of the slain suspects, Dulay and Cu-Unjieng, fired guns during the encounter and that Manzano’s fingerprints were found on the magazine of the Ingram machine pistol police found in the back seat of the rented maroon Nissan Exalta the suspects were in when they died. A 9-mm. Jericho automatic pistol and sachets of shabu were also recovered from the suspects’ sedan.

The UNTV footage also showed TMG operative Senior Inspector Samson Belmonte limping after being shot in the foot. The crime lab ruled out the possibility that the TMG operatives summarily executed the suspected carjackers, saying in its report that tattooing was not present on the suspects’ bodies.

Tattooing is a term used by forensic pathologists to describe the gunpowder scorch marks left around a bullet wound when a victim is shot at point-blank range or closer than two feet.