PNP: 3 'Atimonan' cops missing

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Friday said it will create a tracker team that will hunt down three missing police officers tagged in the killing of alleged jueteng lord Vic Siman and 12 others in Atimonan, Quezon last January 6.

Senior Superintendent Wilben Mayor, spokesperson of PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima, said the tracker teams are now hunting down Superintendent Ramon Balaug, Police Officer 2s Nelson Indal, and Al Bhazar Jailani, who have gone AWOL (absent without leave).

Mayor said that the tracker teams will be composed of members of the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

Mayor, meanwhile, appealed to the three police officers to surrender and face the charges against them.

"I call on them to come into the folds of the law and let the jusice takes its course," the police official said.

Meanwhile, Mayor said the 10 remaining police officers involved in the Atimonan incident have been accounted for.

"The respondents are presently under restrictive custody by the Headquarters Support Service and are reporting daily for accounting from 6 a.m., 1 p.m., and 10 p.m.," Mayor said.

He added that the PNP chief has ordered the Internal Affairs Service to expedite the resolution of the administrative case against the 22 police officers.

Judge Maria Chona Pulgar Navarro of the Quezon Regional Trial Court Branch 61 has ordered the arrest of the 13 police officers.

The arrest warrants were issued a day after the Department of Justice indicted the 13 police officers for multiple murder over the Atimonan incident.