MANILA – A Caloocan City regional trial court found three policemen guilty for the murder of 17-year-old student Kian delos Santos, the first conviction of officers carrying out President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Caloocan City RTC Branch 125 Judge Rodolfo Azucena Jr. sentenced Police Officer 3 Arnel Oares and Police Officers 1 Jeremias Pereda and PO1 Jerwin Cruz to reclusion perpetua, or imprisonment of 20 to 40 years, without eligibility for parole.
Aside from the prison term, the three officers were ordered to pay delos Santos’ family P100,000 for civil indemnity, P100,000 for moral damages, P45,000 for actual damages, and P100,000 for exemplary damages.
The officers have been dismissed from the service and detained.
While found guilty for the murder charge, they were absolved by Azucena for the charge of planting firearms and drugs on delos Santos – which the prosecution failed to prove.
This guilty verdict marks the first conviction in the war on drugs, which has killed at least 4,900 drug suspects since Duterte assumed office on July 1, 2016.
The Philippine National Police respected the verdict.
“This will not cause us to waver a bit to resolve the menace in illegal drugs,” said Chief Superintendent Benigno Durana Jr., PNP spokesman. “This case does not define the whole picture on the way we wage the war against illegal drugs.”
“The three policemen were charged for murder. Walang extrajudicial killing. The fact that they were charged by the court for only that case … means that it’s not extrajudicial,” he added.
‘NO PARDON’
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo assured the critics of the administration that Duterte will never pardon the convicted policemen.
“You must remember that this is a murder. There is intention to kill. The President will never tolerate that,” Panelo said. “Obviously, if the conviction is murder, which is intentional, I don’t think the President will pardon.”
Delos Santos, a Grade 11 student, was killed in a “one-time, big-time” anti-illegal drug operation by the Caloocan City police for allegedly drawing a firearm as officers were out to arrest him on Aug. 16, 2017.
But accounts from witnesses and a closed-circuit television camera at the site of the operation showed two men in civilian clothes dragging delos Santos across a basketball court before shooting him while lying down.
Two small sachets of suspected shabu, a .45 gun and four fired cartridges were recovered at the scene. Witnesses also claimed that delos Santos was handed a gun and told to run.
Delos Santos’ killing was one of the controversial cases involving Caloocan officers last year. Others were the death of teenagers Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo “Kulot” De Guzman, who allegedly held up a taxi driver./PN
