General resigns over Manila execution row
General resigns over Manila execution row
MANILA (Reuter): A controversial Philippine police general in charge of a presidential anti-crime task force said yesterday he would quit his job over accusations that police killed 11 suspected bank robbers in cold blood.
Gen. Panfilo Lacson told a Senate committee investigating the case he is resigning after charges were filed on Thursday against him, two other police generals and six other officers.
"I'm filing my letter of resignation," Lacson said.
"Certain circumstances have already put me in a bind because there is already a referral to the Ombudsman where I am referred to as a suspect in the case," he said.
The others facing charges include generals Jewel Canson and Romeo Acop, two colonels, three majors and a lieutenant. Canson and Acop resigned their posts as senior officers in the capital on Thursday.
National Police Director-General Recaredo Sarmiento accepted their resignations from their positions. The officers will remain in the police force but will not be given any positions until the charges against them are resolved.
Lacson corroborated the report of two other police generals that 11 suspects were killed during a gunfight with police while they were fleeing in two vans.
Asked if the report is an accurate narration of what happened, Lacson said: "I invoke my right under the constitution to remain silent."
Two sergeants involved in the May 18 operation said the suspects were shot in cold blood while in handcuffs. A police forensic report said 10 of the 11 tested negative for nitrates, indicating they had not fired weapons at the time they were killed.
Canson heads the national capital regional police command while Acop is chief of the police criminal investigation service.
Lacson commands a strike force of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC) formed to battle crime syndicates.
A police panel said on Thursday there is enough evidence to warrant sending the case to the courts for trial. The panel said it was investigating the involvement of other officers in the case.
President Fidel Ramos, whose government is under fire over the killings, has clipped the powers of the PACC.
Ramos released guidelines to turn the PACC into a mere agency to coordinate anti-crime operations, Justice Secretary Teofisto Guingona said on Thursday.
Under the guidelines, the PACC's anti-kidnapping and anti- robbery strike forces would be disbanded, Guingona said. He said he was meeting with PACC to discuss implementation of the guidelines.