Cops vs cops

Next time 13 people are killed, whether they are considered bad guys or not, lawmen may want to preserve the site, then take photos or video footage before anything is disturbed.

Ideally, someone who did not participate in the operation should be brought in to inspect the scene of the killing.

This is if the lawmen involved want it known that the deaths resulted from a legitimate law enforcement operation.

Until proper inspection is conducted, fatalities and pieces of evidence at the scene, including ammunition shells and slugs, are not supposed to be disturbed. Only the wounded can be moved, obviously so they can get treatment ASAP.

Disturbing a crime scene – or the scene of a shootout – can constitute tampering with evidence, which can be a criminal offense. In the case of the Vizconde massacre, a Parañaque policeman spent several years in prison for literally cleaning up the scene of the crime.

Dead men tell no tales, but their relatives can – and relatives can also voice suspicions of a rubout. Relatives of even one dead man can make a lot of noise; think of the din from relatives of 13 fatalities.

Preserving a scene of death can spare lawmen a lot of grief when they are falsely accused of summary execution.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is supposed to have SOCO or Scene of the Crime Operatives to document, collect and keep evidence.

In the case of the purported shootout at a checkpoint in Quezon last Sunday afternoon, it seems no SOCO was called in. All that the public initially got was the version of the joint police-Army contingent manning the checkpoint.

Security forces released the first photos taken at the scene – with all the fatalities already lying side by side on the road, their brains spilling into the pavement.

We’re not sure where each fatality was seated in the two Mitsubishi Montero sport utility vehicles, and who among them might have first opened fire as the convoy approached the checkpoint, triggering (according to the joint contingent) a return fire.

The return fire was so blistering the two SUVs were riddled all over with bullet holes and three tires on one vehicle blew out.

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Even without that woman yapping away at a funeral parlor about the millions in gambling collections (in cash) her slain police husband was supposed to be escorting, certain details about the event stand out.

One is the checkpoint sign. Such signs are usually prominently displayed along the road, to make vehicles slow down. This one must have been hidden up on a tree; it bears not a single scratch from when the guys in the convoy supposedly opened fire, with rifles and pistols.

Those in the convoy must have been atrociously awful shots; even with their advantage of surprise, only one person at the checkpoint was slightly wounded, in the hand and feet.

The buzz yesterday was that the wounded cop, Superintendent Hansel Marantan, who has figured in other controversial armed encounters with bad guys in recent years, was feuding with two of the fatalities who apparently owned the SUVs – Victorino Siman, tagged by both military and police sources as the top jueteng lord in Bicol and Southern Tagalog, and his brother Gerry. Marantan has denied he has a sister involved in illegal gambling in Southern Luzon.

Gerry reportedly sued Marantan last November for the killing of six of Siman’s gambling bookies in Calamba, Laguna. Police described the six as guns-for-hire.

Another interesting detail is why the police superintendent in the convoy – the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the military – did not simply roll down the window of the SUV and introduce himself to colleagues at the checkpoint.

Superintendent Alfredo Consemino resided at Camp Vicente Lim in Canlubang, headquarters of the Calabarzon PNP command. Surely he was known to at least some of those manning the checkpoint. The convoy could have simply been waved away.

Suspicions fuel other suspicions. With at least one woman babbling about a large pile of missing cash, questions are now being raised even about the number of firearms found in the possession of the fatalities. The checkpoint contingent initially reported recovering eight caliber .45 pistols, a baby Armalite and an M14 rifle (and no cash).

Yesterday the PNP added a 9mm and three more .45 caliber handguns to the list, so 13 in all. The latest interesting detail is that all the guns were licensed. So if the convoy had nothing illegal to hide, why evade a checkpoint?

With an alleged top gambling lord plus several police and military officers in the two vehicles (escorting, if true, “more or less” P100 million in cold cash), would the convoy have protected itself with only two rifles and 11 handguns?

If the shootout was really a rubout – proof that if you don’t share, you go to hell – the next question is how much the PNP leadership knew. How high does responsibility go?

People are watching the response of daang matuwid to this latest crisis in law enforcement. Surely the commander-in-chief doesn’t want the Philippines looking like the land of Cosa Nostra. 

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FEEDBACK: Former President Fidel Ramos’ spokesman Nick Lagustan wrote to correct my reference to the “mess” in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao as a product of the original peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

The ARMM was created on Aug. 1, 1989, seven years before the peace agreement was signed, Lagustan pointed out.

Economic growth and productivity in Mindanao were at their highest in 1994-1998, Lagustan noted, and a truce negotiated with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front went into effect in July 1997. This was broken starting in April 2000 by then President Joseph Estrada’s “all-out war in Mindanao,” Lagustan wrote.

He added that Ramos and the MNLF’s Nur Misuari won the 1997 UNESCO Peace Prize – the first for Asians – with Henry Kissinger as chairman of the board of judges.

“Unfortunately, the subsequent phases of the (peace agreement)’s implementation did not get the attention they deserved from the succeeding administrations,” Lagustan wrote. “No matter how beautiful any peace agreement may seem to be, however, it is its implementation on the ground that counts. It is the sincerity, dedication and commitment of the various stakeholders, particularly our national/local/rebel leaders, who will make enduring peace and sustainable development happen.”