What self-defense?

Police investigators who investigated the killing of a 19-year-old student in Davao City by a police physician should be fired from, or relieved of, their posts for incompetence.

Police probers were apparently protecting their own kind.

Amierkhan Mangacop, a Grade 9 student, clearly was at the wrong place at the wrong time, as shown by video clips.

Mangacop was wearing a motorcycle helmet when he was shot by Dr. Marvin Rey Andrew Pepino, a non-uniformed physician of the Philippine National Police (PNP) of the Davao Police Regional Office.

The teenager, relatives said, came to fetch his cousin at the Lugar Café and Bar on his motorcycle.

He sustained seven gunshot wounds.

Davao PNP investigators said Dr. Pepino shot Mangacop in self-defense.

Firstly, how could Dr. Pepino claim self defense when he shot the teenager seven times – I repeat, seven times! If he were defending himself, a shot or two at Mangacop could have been justified.

In a self-defense situation, one or two successive shots are enough to stop an opponent who is equally armed.

Secondly, Mangacop was wearing a helmet, signifying that he had just dismounted from his motorcycle.

Pepino and Mangacop’s cousin, who was not named in the report, were having a fistfight when Mangacop arrived.

The video footage of the incident said Pepino fell, got up and pursued Mangacop and his cousin who were walking away.

The police report didn’t mention if Mangacop was shot in the back. If he was shot in the back, then Pepino committed murder. How could Pepino claim self-defense when his opponent – granting that Mangacop did have a fight with him – was already fleeing from the scene?

An impartial investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on the incident had this to say: “The PNP is not impartial because despite [the] footage, they refuse to correct their investigation report and they still adhere to the initial report that the shooting was [in] self defense.”

Bravo to the NBI investigators!

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So, what can be learned from Mangacop’s shooting re: Dr. Pepino, especially for us who go to bars and nightclubs to unwind after a day’s work?

If you’re already tipsy, go home. Don’t linger and waddle around, siance you might bump into other drunks who might be looking for trouble.

If somebody is staring at you and apparently looking for a fight, leave immediately.

If you carry a gun on your person, the more you should be tolerant of others’ misbehavior and hold your temper.

Remember, it’s easy to get into a fight, but hard to get out of it. The consequences of shooting another person – even in self-defense – when you sober up the next morning are not worth the trouble.

You’re not less of a man when you walk away from trouble.

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Another kind of drunkenness involves having so much power. Drunk with power, as they say.

This kind of intoxication is difficult to get away from because people who are full of it think that they can get away with any offense, including murder.

Look at the Ampatuans of Maguindanao. They thought that because they were friends with then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, they could do anything as they pleased, including committing murder.

The Ampatuans – father Andal Sr., Andal Jr. and Zaldy – and their factotums are now serving life sentences for the grisly massacre of 58 people they considered their political enemies.

GMA provided the Ampatuans with firearms and uniformed military and police bodyguards in return for winning over actor Fernando Poe Jr. in Maguindanao during the 2004 presidential election. The Ampatuan family had promised Arroyo “zero” votes for FPJ in Maguindanao and fulfilled it.

At the height of their power, the Ampatuans strutted in any part of the country with a coterie of at least 25 armed police and military bodyguards, thanks to the grateful Gloria.

Also, at the height of their power, the Ampatuans maintained mansions in Davao City and Maguindanao with bank vaults filled with hundreds of millions in cold cash.

When the mansion in Maguindanao of the Ampatuans was raided, soldiers reportedly looted the vault of at least P800 million in cash and kept the humongous amount for themselves.

All the Ampatuan mansions are now abandoned and practically rotting with disuse.

They thought they were above the law; they thought wrongly.

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Zaldy Ampatuan’s petition to be allowed a hospital stay, citing he might contract COVID-19 in prison, has been disallowed by the Court of Appeals.

Zaldy was the Maguindanao governor when the massacre took place in Ampatuan town (yuk!) in November 2009.

The elder Ampatuan, Andal Sr., died in detention while the multiple murder cases were being tried. Andal Jr. is reportedly sickly at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

It’s just as well Zaldy’s petition was not granted, because he might bribe his hospital guards and escape, never to be seen again.

Anyway, there’s a hospital at the NBP, so why can’t he be confined there?

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From now on, only the PNP, NBI, convoys of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, fire trucks, marked police cars and ambulances are allowed to use sirens and blinkers.

Even personnel from the Land Transportation Office (LTO) are no longer allowed to use wang-wang devices in their vehicles.

The PNP’s Highway Patrol should watch out for some Korean and Chinese nationals who use wang-wang devices to get through traffic. These foreigners even employ uniformed men to escort them. The practice must be stopped.