Father of leptospirosis victim files case vs cops
An administrative complaint was filed on Monday against three police officers before the National Police Commission (Napolcom) by a man who accused them of arresting him for theft and then charging him with illegal gambling.
Jayson dela Rosa, whose 20-year-old son Dion Angelo died of leptospirosis after he waded through floodwaters while looking for his father following the latter’s arrest, was accompanied by his lawyer, Arnold Valenzuela, and Kalookan Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David when he filed the complaint against the police officers who were not identified.
Dela Rosa was allegedly initially arrested for theft in a convenience store on July 22 but was charged with violating Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1602 (illegal gambling) three days later.
According to Valenzuela, the convenience store decided not to press charges against his client, although he was still taken by the police to the Caloocan Substation 2. He said Dela Rosa was kept there for several days before authorities decided to charge him with a lesser crime.
“What happened was, the police still arrested him and they told him to be grateful because 7-Eleven would not pursue the case against him, but just the same, he was still taken and detained at Substation 2,” the lawyer said in a press briefing.
He added that while in detention, his client was told he would just be charged “with a minor offense, violation of PD 1602.”
“It’s as if he should be grateful to them for charging him with a lesser offense even though he did not commit the crime,” Valenzuela said.
“Supposedly, there’s no complaint; the police should let him go because there is no complaint. But for reasons only known to the police officers, they opted to invent a case, to make up a case that is not true,” he stressed.
Napolcom Vice Chair and Executive Officer Rafael Calinisan said that possible grave misconduct complaints can be filed against the police officers involved in the case based on the testimony of Dela Rosa, backed up by the footage taken by a CCTV at the convenience store.
More cops involved?
He added that they were also looking into the supposed involvement of two to three more police officers who might have assisted in the filing of an illegal gambling complaint against Dela Rosa.
Dela Rosa’s son, Dion Angelo or Gelo, was a third-year human resource services student at Malabon City College and an altar server at the new Longos Mission Station church. When his father went missing on July 22, Gelo went looking for him, eventually learning that he had been arrested, allegedly for playing kara y krus, a coin-toss betting game.
David, who wrote about Gelo in a Facebook post, lamented his plight, saying that because the family could not post the P30,000 bail, the young man had to wade through floodwaters every day to bring his father food.
“On Sunday night, July 27, the young man who had been the pillar of hope for his family passed away. The cause: leptospirosis, a disease caused by rat urine in the dirty floodwaters he had waded through…,” David said.
