TWO family members who survived the police assault on the home of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog that killed him, his wife Susan, his brother Octavio and 12 others will file arbitrary detention charges Tuesday against the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), which was behind the deadly raid.
Ferdinand Topacio, legal counsel of Nova Princess Echavez and Reynaldo Parojinog Jr., said his clients will file arbitrary detention charges against the CIDG for illegally locking them up beyond the 36 hours allowed by law without filing a case.
Nova Princess Parojinog-Echavez and Reynaldo Jr. were arrested after Sunday’s raid on the Parojinog compound.
She accused police of planting firearms and illegal drugs inside her house, an allegation denied by Misamis Occidental police chief Senior Supt. Jaysen de Guzman.
“We will be studying all angles here. But for now, we were just given the search warrant but with one page missing and we also saw the statements by the arresting officers and other supporting documents in connection with the search at the Parojinog compound,” Topacio said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Justice department had yet to file criminal charges against Nova Princess and Reynaldo Jr.
Proceedings scheduled for 1 p.m. were delayed after the CIDG team arrived late at 2 p.m.
Topacio earlier described the dawn raid Sunday as overkill.
“I’m all for the war on drugs… but there is such a thing as justified killing, and there is such a thing as overkill,” Topacio said in a TV interview.
Topacio said the wife of the mayor, Susan, could not have pulled out a gun and fired at the policemen during the predawn raid inside their home in Ozamiz City.
“An old woman could hardly have brought out an M16 or M14 to fire at the police,” he said in Filipino. “That’s very unlikely.”
In a radio interview after the raid, Ozamiz City legal officer Jeffrey James Ocang also said the mayor could not have engaged the police in a gunfight, and noted that the mayor, his wife, and provincial board member Octavio Parojinog all had gunshot wounds to the head.