Army claims police report on Jolo shooting ”fabricated”

July 1, 2020

The Philippine Army (PA) found the police report on the killing of four soldiers in Sulu as "fabricated", "full of lies", "inconsistent" and misleading".

"We got angry with the spot report yesterday.That is very unbelievable. It's very unbelievable, full of lies, fabricated, misleading, full of inconsistencies," Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay said in an interview with reporters in Villamor Airbase on Tuesday

In a television interview, Col. Ramon Zagala, Philippine Army spokesman, also questioned why policemen left the crime scene if they really believed the four victims were not members of the military.

"Our commanding general has already said that the report is inaccurate, misleading, to a point he even called it fabricated because within an hour they were able to send it out and media already had the report while we were still thinking why the report was already given to the media. We were still thinking what happened. We were still finding out what happened," he said.

"Can you imagine the report, that evening of the 29th in several news agencies that they killed suspected armed men? that's what it says. If you claim that you killed suspected armed men why did you leave?Isn't that already a score for you?So that means they knew they were military," he added.

Zagala also reiterates that the Philippine Army strongly believed that the incident is not a "misencounter" as claimed by the PNP.

"We don't agree with the use of misencounter because misencounter is, by definition is friendly forces engage each other without knowing it...they have mistaken the other side as the enemy," he said.

"In the first checkpoint, our soldiers clearly identified that they were military and at the same time when they were questioned if they were military, they were told to go the Jolo police station and they were compliant,'' said Zagala.

''When they proceeded to the Jolo police station no less than the team leader, Maj. (Marvin) Indammog alighted the vehicle to proceed to the station when he was confronted by the police at the rear of the vehicle," Zagala said.

"So again there is no action to flee but he was shot and the other four. One Capt. (Irwin) Managuelod who was inside the vehicle was on his laptop when he was killed. So there are many questions why they did this but at the end of the day we believe this is not a misencounter," he added. Robina Asido/DMS