Cops admit ignoring ambush video

SASMUAN, Pampanga - Police rejected as evidence a video footage allegedly showing gunmen shooting at the party of Mayor Catalina Bagasina and presidential son Joel Ejercito.

The footage was taken by television reporter Vincent Rodriguez, the lone fatality in the May 23 ambush and the sole journalist with Ejercito.

It is believed that Rodriguez had focused the camera on the gunmen as they were firing at one of the seven speedboats carrying Bagasina and Ejercito's party on their return to Sasmuan town proper at around 4:30 p.m. that day.

Pampanga police chief Senior Superintendent Alejandro Gutierrez said investigators had returned the video camera along with the video tape to Rodriguez's father.

"We presumed that Vincent was not able to tape anything since the battery pack was with Mr. Bagasina (the mayors' husband)," he said.

Gutierrez said the police procedure is to return to relatives personal belongings of crime victims following the investigation.

However, the father of Rodriguez said that investigators had not examined the video cassette to determine if the ambush and the gunmen's faces had actually been recorded on tape.

The video camera was returned to him two days after the ambush because the investigators could not open the camera's battery pack, he added.

Bagasina told the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday that the ambush was politically motivated and that she was the gunmen's real target and not Ejercito, who was merely visiting the town.

She had been receiving death threats after the Regional Trial Court of Pampanga proclaimed her last April as the winner in the 1998 elections, she added.

After the ambush, Bagasina asked for additional police security from Gutierrez.

Ejercito was in Pampanga to visit a proposed site for a resettlement project for victims of Mt. Pinatubo in Barangay Malusak at the invitation of Bagasina.

Meanwhile, Central Luzon police director Chief Superintendent Roberto Calinisan said yesterday he will not dismiss Sasmuan police commander Chief Inspector Manuel Chica.

Calinisan issued the statement in response to Bagasina's request that Chica be relieved from his post.

He advised Bagasina to avoid accusing her political opponents as the ones behind the ambush, saying criminal charges have already been filed against the alleged perpetrators.

"We will not stop until the suspects are brought behind bars," he said.