The Philippine National Police (PNP) is investigating the arrest of a columnist for a local paper in Mindanao who had been mistaken for a top female rebel wanted for criminal charges while she was on her way home to Davao City.
PNP chief Director General Oscar D. Albayalde said the Internal Affairs Service would look into the mistaken arrest of Margarita Valle, columnist for the Davao Today, at the Laguindingan Airport in Misamis Oriental on Saturday.
He said the probe will look into whether lapses were committed by the arresting officers from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), who, it turned out, were just assisting the military in serving a warrant of arrest.
CIDG director Major General Amador Corpus said the assistance was sought by their “counterparts” from the military, which ironically ended in the more than nine-hour ordeal of Valle in Pagadian City where she was brought by the arresting officers.
“Our counterparts asked for assistance in the service of a warrant against a high-profile personality. So that was a normal police procedure,” said Corpus, adding that their counterparts used an agent in aiding the service of the warrant.
He said that while Valle had been brought to Pagadian City, the military informant did not confirm whether Valle was indeed the same personality indicated in the warrant, thus, resulting in her longer stay under the custody of policemen.
“So they have an agent whom they had used, and she was intercepted at the airport. From there, their informant did not confirm, even after validation, that she was the same person. That’s why there was a mistaken identity,” Corpus explained.
Corpus said that the CIDG later confirmed that it had taken the wrong person through a photo.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said Valle “was forcibly taken” at the airport while waiting for her flight to Davao City using a warrant of arrest issued against “Elsa Renton, alias Tina Maglaya, and Fidelina Margarita Valle.”
Renton, an alleged communist party member, has standing warrants of arrest for arson and multiple murder with quadruple frustrated murder and damage to government property.
Albayalde said that if Valle felt that her rights were violated, then the PNP leadership would assist her. But still, whether she would file a complaint or not, the PNP will probe her arrest.
“If she feels she was violated, we will be very glad to assist her. If her arrest or the manner she was arrested, and even if something was violated against her while she was in custody…we will not hesitate to file charges against our people,” the PNP chief said.
Albayalde said that such case of mistaken arrest was not the first for the PNP, but there are “isolated cases also of mistaken identities” for policemen.