Cop to be arraigned in Maguindanao massacre trial

MANILA, Philippines - A Philippine National Police (PNP) colonel will be arraigned on Aug. 2 after a judge hearing the Maguindanao massacre murder case denied his appeal to question his indictment.

Superintendent Abdulwahid Pedtucasan will be arraigned at 9 a.m. at Quezon City Jail-Annex in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig.

Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 221 junked the motion for reconsideration filed by Pedtucasan, who earlier questioned a July 2010 order of the court that held there was probable cause to indict him.

The 2010 order was based on Pedtucasan’s admission that he deployed additional troops to the Maitumaig detachment in Datu Unsay town upon instruction of their group director, Superintendent Bahnarin Kamaong.

Senior Inspector Abdulgapor Abad, commanding officer of the 5th Company of the 15th Regional Mobile Group, said he set up the checkpoint on Nov. 23, 2009 upon orders of Pedtucasan.

But Pedtucasan claimed these grounds, without corroborative evidence, were insufficient to indict him. He claimed Kamaong’s order to deploy additional troops, which he relayed to Abad, was part of their ordinary duties as police officers, and as such, should be treated with the presumption of regularity.

However, the court ruled that these “will not change the fact that his deployment of additional troops and verbal instruction to conduct checkpoint operation had lent support and somehow facilitated the victims’ abduction where they were brought to a hilly portion of Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman, and subsequently killed.”

Solis-Reyes said in her July 18 order that what the court had determined is “the existence of probable cause” so far as Pedtucasan is concerned, “not the certainty of the commission of the crime charged.”

She said “corroborative evidence at this stage will not affect its (the court’s) findings.”