PNP won’t create fact-finding team on slay of Siman’s aide

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine National Police (PNP) is not likely to create a fact-finding team to investigate the killing of a junior police officer identified with slain suspected gambling lord Vic Siman in Calamba City last weekend. 

PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr. said the local police will handle the probe on the murder of Police Officer 2 Rufino de Ocampo Mendoza in Calamba City, Laguna last Feb. 16.

“There’s no need for a fact-finding team and the incident will be investigated by the local police on instruction of Calabarzon Police director Chief Superintendent Benito Estipona,” Cerbo added. Estipona ordered Laguna Police director Senior Superintendent Pascual Muñoz to look into possible links between Mendoza’s murder and the killing of Siman and his 12 companions in Atimonan, Quezon on Jan. 6. 

The STAR learned that Mendoza was from Mindoro but transferred to Calamba City in 1997. 

Mendoza was having a meal with his live-in partner in an eatery at Crossing when two men on a motorcycle pulled up and opened fire with a caliber .45 handgun last Saturday.

Cerbo said investigators could not yet see any indication of Mendoza’s link to Siman, but a police officer in Calabarzon, who requested anonymity, said investigators are looking at possible rivalry for the control of illegal gambling in the province as the motive behind the killing.

Probers said that Mendoza was allegedly involved in illegal gambling, particularly jueteng, video karera, and paihip operations in Calamba.

The same police officer told The STAR that Siman helped Mendoza put up video karera machines in the area.

The same source said Siman and Mendoza became friends when the policeman was assigned at Calauan town, where he moonlighted as the gambling lord’s security and was also on the take in jueteng payola. Superintendent Caesar Tannagan, Calamba City police chief, said that Mendoza had been receiving death threats and was seeking assistance from a cousin, who was also a police officer, shortly before his death.

The source said Mendoza’s cousin was also reportedly involved in jueteng. He said the gunmen were reportedly from a Batangas and Quezon group.

President Aquino has yet to make public the report of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on the Atimonan killing, where police and military officers were among the victims.

Superintendent Hansel Marantan, team leader in the Atimonan police operation, maintained regularity in the incident despite questions raised by both PNP and NBI on the manner the checkpoint was carried out. 

Marantan, the only police officer wounded in the incident, remains confined at the PNP General Hospital. – With Ed Amoroso