The Philippine National Police (PNP) will cooperate in the ongoing investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) of a reported kidnapping that was allegedly perpetrated by policemen in Manila.
PNP Chief General Guillermo Eleazar said the police organization will work with the NBI in its probe into the kidnapping of three people by policemen in Sta. Cruz, Manila in April this year as claimed by two witnesses.
The victims, Rexcell John Hipolito; 23, Ronald Jae Dizon, 21; and Ivan Serrano, 18, were snatched by policemen, according to two witnesses who are now under the custody of the NBI. The NBI did not identify the policemen and even the witnesses.
The two witnesses, who are brothers, were arrested by policemen during an anti-illegal drugs operation in Batangas on June 8. They claimed they were police assets.
“These are serious allegations that need our focus. But at this point, let us allow the investigation of the NBI to take its course and we should not immediately judge our policemen,” Eleazar said.
“I am giving assurance that once it is proven that they really made a mistake, I will not let it pass,” he added.
The suspects alleged that as police assets, they pinpointed drug offenders to the police and that they identified the three kidnap victims as marijuana peddlers.
They claimed they were with the policemen when they took the three men from their neighborhood in Sta. Cruz, Manila. They also alleged that the three men are now dead.
Eleazar said that like the families of kidnapping victims, he too wanted that justice be served in the case.