MANILA, Philippines - Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima said on Monday that Superintendent Hansel Marantan will be the first to be dismissed from the service if investigators are able to prove that the 13 people killed in the shooting in Atimonan, Quezon were victims of a rubout.
"If, in the future, we will find out that he is really guilty of what will be charged to him, he may be the first to be dismissed... if he will be found guilty of the administrative charges that will be filed," Purisima said during the regular media forum at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.
"If he is not guilty, he will be continuing in the service," Purisima added.
Marantan, an intelligence officer, is the team leader of the group of policemen and soldiers that set up a checkpoint in Barangay Lumutan, Atimonan last January 6.
Thirteen people, including suspected jueteng kingpin Vic Siman and a ranking police officer, were killed in the operation.
Marantan is now confined at the St. Luke's Medical Center in Taguig City for the gunshot wounds in the hand and foot that he supposedly sustained during the alleged shootout with Siman's group.
There are allegations that Marantan's wounds were self inflicted to justify his group's claim that there was a shootout.
Two witnesses who went back to Barangay Lumutan with investigators of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to reenact the incident claimed that the 13 victims were killed "in cold blood."
The witnesses told the NBI that Siman and the others had their arms raised in surrender when they were shot dead by the operatives.
De Lima said that the NBI would look into the possibility that the crime scene had been tampered with by the group of Marantan to make it appear that Siman's group fired the first shot that sparked the shootout.
Marantan had been relieved from his post.
President Aquino has also ordered the relief of Calabarzon police commander James Melad and the Quezon police chief after the police investigating team complained that the policemen involved in the Atimonan incident were not cooperating.
De Lima said she would ask Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, whose department has jurisdiction over the Philippine National Police, to compel the police officers involved to cooperate in the NBI probe.
At least 25 soldiers and 24 policemen at the supposed checkpoint have also been grounded.