Army admits soldiers committed lapses in scene of Jolo shooting

July 3, 2020

The Philippine Army admits lapses in the way soldiers responded at the site of the shooting incident where four Army intelligence officers were shot dead allegedly by Jolo police last Monday.

“We admit our personnel committed some lapses but there were no intent of tampering with the crime scene. Their intent was to identify the victims, see if there are survivors and secure the special equipment on board the vehicle,” said Col. Ramon Zagala, Philippine Army spokesman.

Zagala made his statement after a video showing what the responding soldiers did at the crime scene after the incident circulated online.

“Upon seeing the video this morning, we first thought they were police personnel. The CCTV footage showed men doing something in the crime scene so we wanted to verify who they were and we confirmed that they are our soldiers. They were there because witnesses reported the shooting incident,” he said.

Army Commanding General Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay ordered to look further into the video footage and to look for the portion of the video showing the actual shooting of the incident, he added.

Zagala said there were no police securing the crime scene when the soldiers arrived.

"There was no PNP personnel at the time the responding soldiers arrived. As a natural instinct, the soldiers went to the vehicle to check for survivors. Their initial mission was to take down Mundi Sawadjaan, an Abu Sayyaf leader, when the unfortunate incident happened,” he said.

Zagala said although the brother of one of the dead soldiers who was among the responding troops put a t-shirt as pillow under his dead brother's head as shown in the video, the responding soldiers “left the crime scene largely untouched.”

“The person seen moving the body of one of the soldiers killed is actually Corporal Asula’s brother who is also an Army operative. Understandably, he was distraught upon seeing his brother dead and so he put a pillow under his head and when he reached for the front door of the vehicle, his intention was to secure the personal belongings of his brother. The responding soldiers left the crime scene largely untouched,” added Zagala. Robina Asido/DMS