A POLICEMAN who shot and killed a 17-year-old boy in Navotas City in the Philippines last August was sentenced to anywhere between four and six years in jail by a local court on Tuesday.
Four other policemen accused of the crime, reported as a case of mistaken identity, were meted out a lighter sentence of four months imprisonment for illegal discharge of a firearm and released for time served.
Apart from the minimum sentence of four years in prison, Staff Sergeant Gerry Maliban was ordered by Judge Pedro T. Dabu, Jr. to pay P100,000 in civil and moral damages to the family of his victim, Jerhode “Jemboy” Baltazar.
Police Staff Sergeant Antonio Bugayong, the sixth accused in the case, was acquitted by the court.
In a press conference at the Department of Justice (DoJ), the slain teenager’s parents expressed their disappointment over the decision. “It hurts so much,” the victim’s mother, Rodaliza Baltazar, said in Filipino about the sentencing of her son’s killer. “Just four years in prison while my son is gone forever.”
Colonel Allan B. Umipig, chief of the Navotas police, had described the incident as a “lapse in judgment” on the part of his men. They shot the teenager, believing him to be the armed suspect they were chasing.
Assistant Justice Secretary Jose Dominic F. Clavano IV told reporters that Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla had ordered him to recheck the facts of the case and the arguments of the judge to see which can be pleaded to the Court of Appeals (CA).
“The next step of the case is to appeal to the CA using the Solicitor-General,” he said.
Senator Ana Theresia “Risa” Hontiveros released a statement criticizing the culture of impunity in the country and stressed that “the law does not clothe police officers with authority to kill indiscriminately.”
“When Jemboy was shot and fell in the water, he was made fun of by the police and they left him for three hours to drown,” said the senator. “Excessive use of force. Impunity. Inhumanity. That is the bloody legacy of the Duterte administration when we enforced tokhang [a reference to the previous administration’s war on drugs.” — Chloe Mari A. Hufana
