MANILA, Philippines - A man who submitted his handgun to avail himself of the government’s amnesty program for those with expired gun licenses has been charged in connection with a 2006 murder case, officials said yesterday.
Had Angelo Santiago not submitted his 9mm pistol in October 2009 for ballistics testing when he applied for gun amnesty, police officers would not have found that it was the same firearm used in the killing of Sarmiento Perez in Payatas in July 2006, said Senior Superintendent Richard Albano, director of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).
Albano ordered the filing of a murder charge against Santiago with the city prosecutor’s office on April 11 after he failed to appear before the QCPD’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU) to shed light on the mystery surrounding his possession of the gun.
“He (Santiago) obviously could not explain why the gun was with him,†Inspector Elmer Monsalve, head of the homicide investigation section of the QCPD-CIDU, said in an interview.
Monsalve said what led them to charge Santiago was the result of an examination done through the Philippine National Police’s Integrated Ballistics Identification System. According to the PNP’s website, the IBIS has a database that is capable of capturing, storing, comparing and retrieving millions of data entries on firearms.
“The evidence was based on results of exact science and it cannot lie,†Monsalve said.
Death still a mystery
Monsalve said the case stemmed from the death of Perez, whose body was found in a house in Barangay Payatas on July 15, 2006.
Chief Inspector Rodel Marcelo, head of the QCPD-CIDU, said the victim died of gunshot wounds in the abdomen.
He said policemen found at the crime scene a bullet and eight 9mm cartridge cases. These were submitted for ballistics examination.
Years passed and on Oct. 14, 2009, Santiago submitted his 9mm Astra pistol bearing the serial number 26338 for “ballistics testing and stencil tracing,†which is a prerequisite for the firearms amnesty program, according to Monsalve.
Santiago, a resident of Payatas Road in Barangay Commonwealth was applying for a license for the gun.
“The examination conducted by the PNP Crime Laboratory’s IBIS revealed that the pieces of evidence recovered from the crime scene were from the 9mm Astra pistol bearing the serial number 26338 submitted by Angelo Santiago,†Marcelo said.
Police Officer 2 Roldan Cornejo even went to Santiago’s house and informed him of the results of the IBIS examination. Santiago told Cornejo he would appear before the QCPD-CIDU but failed to do so.