EDITORIAL - A small justice

Not all who died during the previous administration’s war against drugs --sometimes called by critics as a war against the poor-- deserved that fate. They didn’t resist arrest, pull out a gun, or endanger a policemen as claimed. They weren’t even criminals. They were merely falsely arrested, then killed, usually after being tortured.

Just recently, justice caught up with a policeman accused of taking part in torturing and planting evidence on two teenagers who were later found dead.

Last Wednesday, the Caloocan City Regional Trial Court Branch 122 found Police Officer 1 Jeffrey Perez guilty of torture and planting evidence in the killings of Carl Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman.

Perez was sentenced to 40 years in prison for torturing De Guzman and planting evidence on Arnaiz, and also ordered to pay the heirs of Arnaiz and De Guzman ?1 million in moral damages and another ?1 million in exemplary damages.

Perez was charged in the crime along with PO1 Ricky Arquilita, but the latter died before the case could be resolved.

While both were not charged for the actual killing of Arnaiz and De Guzman, this is still a victory in the search for justice. No doubt a small victory, but one nonetheless.

However, this isn’t the only case out there involving policemen accused of not behaving like policemen during that troubled time. There are over 6,000 deaths as a result of the war on drugs, and while some of them have resulted in cases filed in court others are in limbo for lack of witnesses and evidence.

Yes, many of them are legitimate police operations where the policemen were only defending themselves and had no choice but to fire back, but while the police ascribed these killings as a result of “nanlaban” (resisting arrest) there are cases where the victim clearly would not or could not put up a fight.

We hope the conviction of Perez will snowball into something that relatives of many victims have been hoping for; justice for their loved ones who didn’t have any justifiable reason to die at the hands of policemen.