Pablito Sanidad, national chairman of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and lead counsel of the 11 punks, said they are carefully studying cases to be filed against members of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) in Cabiten, Mankayan town who reportedly pinpointed them to the police as those who attacked the Army detachment.
FLAG lawyers are also studying torture charges against the Cabiten militiamen for allegedly taking part in beating up the 11 punks, two of them minors and one a female teenager.
This, after Judge Agapito Laoagan of Regional Trial Court Branch 64 quashed the robbery with homicide charges against the 11 punks, ruling that the six Benguet policemen who arrested them "had no personal knowledge of facts indicating that the persons had committed the offense."
Laoagan added that there was "no probable cause to arrest the accused at that time."
The Benguet policemen had insisted that several eyewitnesses positively identified the 11 punks as having taken part in the Feb. 10 raid on the military detachment in Cabiten, Mankayan, four days before they were arrested at a checkpoint.
Laoagan did not buy the Benguet policemen’s claim that they arrested the 11 based on the CAFGUs’ tipoff, saying, "Raw intelligence information is not sufficient ground for a warrantless arrest."
"Relayed information (is) not equivalent to personal knowledge," he added.
Laoagan also dismissed the Benguet policemen’s argument that they had received intelligence information of New People’s Army (NPA) rebels fleeing from the Mankayan raid and they were the punks on board a Sagada-bound dump truck. The punks had hitched a ride going to the upland town.
Laoagan, however, said his decision to quash the robbery with homicide charges does not apply to 24-year-old Rundren Berloize Lao, who was re-arrested by virtue of a warrant after he escaped from the custody of the Buguias police who he alleged had tortured him.
He said Lao "was not under detention when the information was filed, (thus) his arrest and detention is lawful."
Lao, a former engineering student at the Mindanao State University and a Davao resident, cried torture before the National Bureau of Investigation-Cordillera after he escaped a day after the 11 punks were arrested.
Human rights lawyer Noe Villanueva of FLAG, however, said Lao should be "commended" for exposing the "abusive acts of the police and military."
Last March, Lao, together with the 10 other punks, filed criminal cases against the six Benguet policemen for allegedly violating their rights as detainees for not providing them with legal counsels during their interrogation.
They also filed a separate administrative complaint against them with the National Police Commission (Napolcom) for alleged grave misconduct, oppression and conduct unbecoming of police officers for allegedly "torturing" them.
Napolcom-Cordillera has recommended the filing of formal charges against the policemen with its national office.
Laoagan, however, has not yet released the punks and instead has given the Benguet police, with help from the provincial prosecutor’s office, 15 days from receipt of his ruling to file a new information against them.
Villanueva said the prosecution might file a motion for reconsideration and perhaps argue that the court might have mis-appreciated the facts.