Court orders arrest of cops in teens’ slay

MANILA, Philippines — The Caloocan Regional Trial Court Branch 122 has ordered the arrest of two former Caloocan policemen for the torture and murder of teenagers Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman.

In the arrest order signed on Jan. 23 and made available to the media yesterday, Judge Georgina Hidalgo ordered the arrest of Police Officers 1 Jeffrey Perez and Ricky Arquilita for the non-bailable offenses of murder, torture and planting of evidence.

The warrants were referred to the Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City, where the two policemen were placed under restrictive custody.

The warrants were also referred to the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

The judge released the warrants of arrest just days after the cases were raffled off to her branch on Monday.

Perez and Arquilita, according to the information, were charged for allegedly conspiring with each other to kill Arnaiz, 19, and De Guzman, 14.

The two were also charged with one count of torture each for beating up the two teenagers before allegedly killing them.

They were indicted for planting evidence, including sachets of marijuana and shabu in Arnaiz’s pockets and backpack, and a .38 caliber revolver near his body, to make it appear that the slain teenager engaged in a shootout “as cover up for the intended killing,” the information read.

The August killings of the two teenagers followed that of Kian delos Santos, also in Caloocan City, where he was allegedly shot dead by police in an anti-narcotics operation. Closed-circuit television footage showed that Delos Santos was under police custody before he was killed.

Arnaiz, meanwhile, was allegedly killed by Caloocan police on Aug. 18 last year after he allegedly held up taxi driver Tomas Bagcal.

Arnaiz, a witness said, was shot dead by the police while kneeling and in handcuffs.

He was last seen alive with his 14-year-old friend De Guzman when they went out at night supposedly to buy snacks from a convenience store.

The body of De Guzman was found weeks later in a creek in Gapan, Nueva Ecija with 24 stab wounds. His head was wrapped in packing tape and a shirt.

Department of Justice prosecutors tagged the accused policemen as the killers because De Guzman was supposedly last seen alive with them.

The three teenagers’ killings sparked outrage against the administration’s brutal war on drugs, with surveys showing a steep fall in the ratings of President Duterte

The police was pulled out of the war on drugs and the campaign turned over to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.