Judge orders arrest of 7 cops in torture video

MANILA, Philippines - A Manila judge ordered the arrest of seven policemen, including two senior police officers, for their alleged link to the torture of a snatching suspect in a police station in Tondo, Manila last year.

Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 1 Judge Tita Bughao Alisuag issued a warrant for the arrest of Inspector Rogelio Rosales Jr., Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug, Senior Police Officer 3 Joaquin de Guzman, SPO1 Rodolfo Ong Jr., SPO1 Dante Bautista, PO1 Nonito Binayug, PO1 Rez Binayug and several John Does, all assigned to the Asuncion police precinct in Tondo.

“Wherefore, the court having determined probable cause, let respective warrants of arrest issue to all herein names accused,” Alisuag said in her order dated Nov. 3.

The case stemmed from a cell phone video, uploaded on Youtube, purportedly showing Binayug repeatedly pulling on a string attached to the genitals of a naked suspect lying on the floor of the precinct while other policemen watched. Binayug has been dismissed from the police service for the offense.

Alisuag junked the respondents’ motion to quash the criminal complaint. The respondents contended that the Manila court has no jurisdiction over the case; and the Department of Justice (DOJ), which approved last September the filing of charges of torture resulting to death under the new Republic Act 9745 (Anti-Torture Act of 2009), lacked the authority to conduct a preliminary investigation, which should have been conducted by the Ombudsman for the military.

She also dismissed the respondents’ argument that there was no offense under RA 9745 since “there has been no corpus delicti of the person allegedly tortured, resulting (in) his death.” The judge said a reading of this law would reveal that the corpus delicti is the torture itself, and whether the victim’s body is recovered “is of no moment.”

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 other police officers over what the police administration admitted was a case of “maltreatment of a robbery suspect.”

Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Phillip Kimpo said the victim, Darius Evangelista, was identified by three inmates at the Manila Police District Station 11, where he was brought before he was taken to the community precinct. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe, Non Alquitran