Police medico-legal staff, PAO score CHR on autopsy report

MANILA, Philippines - Police medico-legal officers and a forensic consultant of the Public Attorney’s Office yesterday hit back at the Commission on Human Rights for claiming that their autopsy report on the three slain suspected car thieves in the Edsa encounter was fabricated, even questioning the competence of the CHR’s forensic consultant.

Dr. Filemon Porciuncula, chief of the Crime Laboratory of the Quezon City Police District, while saying that they would like to focus first on answering the “serious and grave accusations” made against the police autopsy report, said they were “considering” taking legal actions against the CHR and its forensic consultant over their allegations. “The Medico-Legal Section of the QCPD Crime Laboratory remains at the objectivity of the examinations to arrive in a conclusion based on scientific findings and knowledge,” Porciuncula said in a press conference at the PAO headquarters in Quezon City.

Porciuncula was reacting to statements made by CHR forensic consultant Dr. Raquel Fortun that there were “irregular entries” in the police autopsy report that she said was “tantamount to fabricating reports.” Fortun said the QCPD report stated specific weights of the suspects’ vital organs, even if the organs were still intact and not removed.

Trajectory of bullets

According to Porciuncula, Dr. Paul Ed Ortiz, who conducted the police autopsy, estimated the weights of the organs that were not excised “using the gross size to weight ratio proportion.”

“Leaving them in their anatomical position will help in the reconstruction of the trajectory of the bullets in their bodies, if ever one is to be done in the future,” Porciuncula said.

Porciuncula said “weighing the organs will not affect the cause of death (of the suspects).”

PAO forensic consultant Dr. Erwin Erfe backed up Porciuncula and said that “organ weights are irrelevant in gunshot wound cases, where you have a fairly good idea on the cause of death.”

“Experienced forensic examiners do not remove internal organs to keep the evidence intact. This is especially so if the investigation is still ongoing. Inexperienced forensic examiners lack the foresight and the training in criminal investigations. You do not throw away and mess up the evidence, you keep it intact for as long as possible,” Erfe said.

Erfe said forensic examinations should dwell not on weights of internal organs but rather on the direction of fire and trajectory of the bullet, relative positions between the police and the suspects, the extent of injury, presence of gunshot wounds and type of gun used. Dr. Joseph Palmero, a medico-legal officer at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame, said the CHR forensic consultant could not question them on these important details and that was the reason the latter focused on the weights of the internal organs.

Threats

Erfe said the threat made by the CHR to file charges against the PNP medico-legal officers who did the autopsy “just shows the embarrassing lack of experience of their forensic adviser/s.” Porciuncula lamented during the press conference the way the CHR went to the media without even consulting first with them about what it claimed to be “irregular entries” in the police autopsy report.

“They (CHR) just want media mileage,” Porciuncula told The STAR in an interview before the press conference. Also during the press conference, Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption founding chairman Dante Jimenez hit the CHR for being “emotional.”

“(Issuing) careless statements is not the name of the game. Contain your emotions because you’re (supposed to be) investigating. That’s how a responsible official should act,” Jimenez said, apparently referring to earlier pronouncements made by CHR chairperson Leila de Lima.