NBI dismisses rubout in Cebu suspect’s death

CEBU — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has cleared the chief of the Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Branch (CIIB) and two of his men of any criminal liability in connection with the death of a robbery suspect.

"It is unfortunate that the suspect (Roel Patana) died but the police officers cannot be held criminally liable for his death as the facts clearly indicate that they acted in the lawful performance of duty and that the injury is the necessary consequence of the due performance of duty," NBI agents Nelson Bartolome and Rennan Oliva said in their report, referring to CIIB chief Superintendent Pablo Labra II and his two men.

"The CIIB men’s statement of facts was consistent with the wounds inflicted on Patana and that the number of (his) wounds is not indicative of excessive force," they added.

Labra and his two men, PO2 Brazilio Borinaga and PO1 Eric Ybañez, were escorting Patana in the afternoon of July 6 to the hideout of his supposed partners in gunrunning when Patana allegedly managed to unlock his handcuff.

Patana then reportedly grabbed Ybañez’s firearm and attempted to shoot it out with the lawmen along Fort street in Barangay Guadalupe. In an attempt to disable Patana, Labra fatally shot him.

Bartolome and Oliva said employing "deadly force" is reasonable "when there is no safe alternative to using such force, and without it the officer or others would face imminent and grave danger."

Despite the NBI’s findings, Labra and his two men are not yet fully absolved since the city prosecutor’s office has yet to rule on the complaint for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide which the police have filed against them.

The complaint is expected to be resolved within the week.

In their joint counter-affidavit, the CIIB men said they were left "with no other option but to disable" Patana when he grabbed Ybañez’s firearm.

The NBI investigated the incident after the Integrated Bar of the Philippines asked the agency and the Commission on Human Rights to look into it.

Rojo, a native of Lawis, Ozamiz City, was a self-confessed gunrunner and was implicated in a number of robberies in Metro Cebu in the past two months ago.

Patana hogged the headlines when he took seven people, including three children, hostage for four hours inside a boarding house in Punta Princesa, when lawmen were about to accost him in a checkpoint. — Freeman News Service