THE Caloocan City Regional Trial Court yesterday found four police officers guilty of homicide in connection with the killing of a father and his son at the height of the anti-drug crackdown of the Duterte administration in 2016 called “Operation: Tokhang.”
Caloocan City RTC Branch 212 Presiding Judge Rowena Violago Alejandria said the prosecution successfully established all the elements of homicide under Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code in the case against Police Master Sergeant Virgilio Q. Servantes, and Police Corporals Arnel de Guzman, Johnston M. Alacre, and Argemio Saguros Jr.
The court sentenced the four cops to a maximum of 10 years imprisonment for the killing of Luis Bonifacio and his son Gabriel in September 2016.
Each of the four were also ordered to pay the heirs of the victims P400,000 in actual, civil indemnity, moral, and temperate damages, with an interest of six percent every year from the date of finality of the decision until fully paid.
In finding the four guilty, the court said the prosecution was also able to establish that the respondents conspired with each other.
“The firing of shots made by all the accused which caused the death of the victims without justifiable cause shows the same criminal intent towards the same criminal design,” part of the court’s 30-page decision read.
The court junked the respondents’ main defense that they fired at the father and son victims in self-defense.
“There was nothing to defend when they suddenly entered the house of the victims. Assuming their versions were true, the firing of their guns, as admitted by them, would not satisfy the requisites of ‘in fulfillment of duty’ as a justifying circumstance,” the court said.
It likewise said that it was “highly improbable” that the victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds in different parts of their body if the accused cops fired only one shot each to defend and keep themselves safe.
Likewise, the court said even if the prosecution witnesses failed to identify or name the accused, documentary evidence presented in court were more than enough to secure a conviction.
The court also noted that the accused did not deny their presence and participation in the said police operation.
The court further said it found the straightforward testimony of Luis’ live-in-partner, Mary Ann Domingo, more credible than those presented by the defense.
Domingo testified that the policemen barged into their house in Masikap St. in Barangay Bagong Barrio, Caloocan on the night of September 14, 2016 after her son Gabriel arrived. She said that she, her husband and their three minor children were already about to sleep at the time.
She said the policemen went to the second floor of their house and forced her and her children at gunpoint to go to the first level.
She added she saw her husband and son pleading for their lives with guns pointed on their heads.
While she run to the barangay hall to seek help, Domingo told the court she heard successive gunshots from their residence.
Domingo denied that her husband and son were involved in the illegal drugs trade, adding that the former served as a barangay tanod in their place for some time.
The Office of the Ombudsman had initially recommended the filing of two counts of murder against 21 policemen, but only the four were eventually charged in court and the offense was downgraded to homicide.
The Ombudsman’s resolution was upheld by the Supreme Court Third Division in a decision dated January 22, 2024.
The SC held that the Ombudsman’s Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices (OMB-MOLEO), which found probable cause to charge only four of the 21 accused cops for two counts of homicide, did not abuse its discretion when it found that no probable cause exists to show that the killings of Luis and Gabriel “were qualified by treachery, evident premeditation and abuse of superior strength” that would warrant the filing of murder charges against the policemen.
