Manila cops in torture video indicted

MANILA, Philippines -  The Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted a Manila Police District (MPD) official caught on video torturing an arrested robbery suspect in March last year.

In a 24-page resolution released yesterday, the DOJ approved the filing of charges of torture resulting to death under the new Republic Act 9745 (Anti-Torture Act of 2009) against Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug and six others for the death of inmate Darius Evangelista in a precinct in Tondo, Manila.

Also charged before the Manila trial court were Rogelio Rosales Jr., former station commander of MPD Station 11; SPO3 Joaquin de Guzman; SPO1 Rodolfo Ong; SPO1 Dante Bautista; PO1 Nonito Binayug and PO1 Rex Binayug.

DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima said this case is “significant since it’s the first case filed and resolved under the aegis of the anti-torture act.” In August last year, the National Capital Region Police Office filed charges before the DOJ against Binayug and the others police officers over what the police administration admitted was a case of “maltreatment of a robbery suspect.”

The entire force of Asuncion police community precinct was immediately relieved after ABS-CBN featured a cell phone video purportedly showing Binayug torturing the suspect while other policemen watched.

In the video, the victim was lying on the floor naked, with Binayug repeatedly pulling on a string attached to the victim’s genitals.

Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Phillip Kimpo cited the identification of the victim made by three inmates in the MPD Station 11 where Evangelista was first brought – Emmanuel Miranda, Sonny Lim and Renato Peralta.

“After viewing the video clip, the three inmates identified the naked torture victim as Darius Evangelista while the man sitting in front of him committing the acts of torture as Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug but they could not identify the other persons shown in the video clip,” the resolution stated.

Witnesses said during preliminary investigation that Evangelista was initially brought and detained in a room in Station 11 in the morning of March 5, 2010 but subsequently brought out and “tortured elsewhere” by the police officials.

The DOJ said Rosales, who was then Station 11 commander, is “also being charged under the doctrine of command responsibility.”

The DOJ dismissed the argument of the respondents that the video cannot be admitted as evidence.

“The issue of authentication is not applicable in preliminary investigation. Preliminary investigation exists only for the purpose of ‘probable cause,’ not for proof beyond reasonable doubt which is already the province of trial proper in court,” it said.

The DOJ said the video is only part of the evidence against the policemen, “the other being the testimonies of witnesses.”

The charge against Station 2 commander Superintendent Ernesto Tendero Jr. was dismissed for “lack or insufficiency of evidence” while the charge against SPO1 Burt Tupas was dismissed after having been dropped during the preliminary investigation.