MANILA, Philippines - Acting Manila Mayor Isko Moreno reprimanded yesterday two Manila policemen for dragging a 13-year-old boy from an Internet shop and taking his money and cell phone, presumably for violating the city’s curfew.
The boy identified Senior Police Officer 2 Allan Dematera and PO1 Juanito Arabejo, Jr., accompanied by two civilians, as the ones who pulled him and several other teenagers out of the shop and hit him on the nape, Moreno said.
During a confrontation at his office, the two policemen said the curfew ordinance is meant to keep those aged 17 and below off the streets, he said.
Also present during the confrontation were Superintendent Alex Gutierrez, chief of the District Special Projects Unit; Superintendent Ernesto Tendero, Station 3 Commander of the Manila Police District; and Senior Inspector John Guiagui, deputy chief of the Alvarez community precinct.
When Arabejo angrily stood up and maintained that they simply enforced the ordinance, Moreno told him that he had him and Dematera summoned to get their side.
It took Gutierrrez to pacify Arabejo, who later apologized to Moreno.
Moreno said law enforcers were not supposed to barge into Internet shops and round up minors. He noted that the ordinance prohibits minors from loitering in the streets from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.
“What if the minor was eating at a food outlet? Some are open 24 hours. Will you drag them out, too?” he asked.
Moreno also noted that Dematera and Arabejo did not dispute the boy’s claims that he and several others, including a girl, were made to sit on top of one another just to fit into the police patrol car.
During the confrontation, the boy’s mother said the policemen traumatized her son by prohibiting him from calling her up and allegedly using civilians to take her son’s cell phone and money, which were only returned when she filed charges at the MPD’s women and children’s desk.