A Navotas court has found only one of the six former police officers guilty in the killing of 17-year-old Jemboy Baltazar in August 2023, with only former S/Sgt. Gerry Maliban being sentenced up to six years in prison for the lower offense of homicide.
Four others were convicted, but only for illegal discharge of firearms, sentenced to four months, and were released by the court due to time already served during the trial. The sixth defendant was acquitted as the court said there was doubt on whether he fired his gun during the operation.
Baltazar was repairing a boat when he was shot by the policemen in Barangay NBBS on August 2, 2023. He fell into the sea and his lifeless body was recovered several hours later.
The Navotas prosecutor’s office filed murder charges against the policemen, who were dismissed from the PNP last year. The court, however, ruled that they were simply performing their duty when they mistook Baltazar for a murder suspect and shot him dead.
The Baltazar family and the Department of Justice say they will appeal the lower court’s decision that imposed lighter than expected penalties on the cops who shot and killed an innocent kid. It seems that the case will be elevated to the Court of Appeals and the solicitor general will handle it, only this time, in a surreal plot twist, it will apparently represent the victim instead of the defendants.
There is so much to unpack from this development, as it sounds tragic but sounds a bit hopeful at the same time.
The tragedy is the killer cops got off with practically a slap on the wrist for the murder of an innocent 17-year-old. It looks like our justice system is still wired with a bias towards the cops, which is probably part of the effects of the murderous Duterte regime and its indiscriminate drug war that dehumanized criminals and practically glorified killer cops.
The bit of hope comes from the current dispensation looking like it is willing to make the effort to repair the damage. If this ruling had been passed under the previous administration, the government would’ve gloated that justice had already been allowed to take its course. This time however, the DOJ and the OSG is seemingly leading the charge in the appeal against the slap on the wrist on the cops who killed Jemboy. That should probably count as a significant turnaround or breakthrough, and hopefully encourage the rest of the cops out there to behave better, especially when they are armed and dangerous, because perhaps, government no longer tolerates indiscriminate killing the way it used to.
Hopefully that is the message the DOJ is trying to send, both to the cops and the Filipino people.
If that is the intention, then it is a good start, but so much more has to be done to repair the damage that has been wrought upon our police force.
One of the biggest problems facing our police force is how trigger happy our cops have become. They need to be retrained so that firing their guns is not the solution to every problem, big or small. The deaths of Kian Delos Santos in 2017 and Jemboy Baltazar succinctly illustrate how this is a problem that has to be addressed by the PNP.
Aside from being trigger happy, our cops also have way too much access to their weapons of death. If I’m not mistaken, they are even encouraged to bring their firearms even when off duty, which if you ask me is bonkers. If you come to think of it, in countries like the UK, cops don’t even need firearms when on duty. They only break out the guns when really needed, and that is probably why they don’t get Kians or Jemboys over there. Here in the Philippines, even any rando off duty drunk cop has a service firearm always at the ready to shoot people dead, and ask questions later.
Cops having their firearms with them all the time also means they are no longer accountable for it and its bullets. In the case of Jemboy, the PNP couldn’t even tell who fired what, probably because there was no system for accounting all the bullets issued and used. If cops are issued firearms only when on specific forms of duty that require it, then the magazines and bullets would be accounted for as well. In an ideal world and in the spirit of public safety, a cop who returns to the station with fewer bullets than he started should have to account for those. That probably doesn’t happen in the Philippines, so cops don’t really care where their bullets go, which makes them the truly dangerous kind. If you don’t believe me, go ask Jemboy or Kian.
The identity and psyche of the Filipino policeman is too attached to his firearm and that has to change. Whether the DOJ or the PNP does it, it doesn’t matter, but so much work is still left to be done if we are going to have a police force that actually makes us safe instead of “accidentally” killing kids while on duty.*
