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By Mail Foreign Service
Anguish: The footage was filmed at a police station in Manila and shows a suspect lying naked on the ground Philippine police have relieved a number of officers from duty after a television station aired footage allegedly showing police torturing a naked detainee.
The detained man is believed to be a suspected thief caught in Manila's Tondo slum district, according to ABS-CBN TV, which said it obtained the cell phone footage from an unidentified informer.
The man's fate and when the video was taken were unclear.
Horrific: He has his genitals bound and a police officer allegedly pulling on the rope as he writhes in agony
Outcry: The prisoner is believed to be an alleged car thief. His fate is unknownThe footage shows him screaming on the floor in a foetal position with his genitals bound and a man pulling the rope and whipping him.
'Snatching is not allowed here,' the man beating the detainee can be heard saying, while a uniformed officer stands by and watches.
Metropolitan Manila police chief Leocadio Santiago relieved the 11-member police station Wednesday and ordered its commander, Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug, investigated for criminal acts.
The maximum penalty under an anti-torture law passed last year is 40 years in prison if the victim dies.
'We are holding Binayug responsible. We will be filing charges for dereliction of duty but we want something heavier,' Santiago told reporters.
Binayug could not be reached for comment as the precinct does not have a working phone and the chief did not provide his phone number.
It is not clear if the 10 others will also face charges, but that will be part of the investigation, police said.
New officers were assigned to the precinct under investigation.
Suspended: The footage was broadcast on a television news show sparking action against an entire police stationPresident Benigno Aquino III said torture is not a government policy. Asked about the incident at a news conference, Aquino said 'the police also are entitled to their day in court and to due process.'
Coco Quisumbing, an official of the Commission on Human Rights, which said it would separately investigate the torture allegations, said she was aghast after seeing police officers in the video seemingly showing indifference.
Amnesty International researcher Hazel Galang said the incident can serve as a test case for the country's anti-torture law and the Aquino government's determination to implement it.
'Tomorrow is the 50th day of the Aquino presidency and in the first 50 days we've already seen torture cases, we've seen extra-judicial killings,' she said. 'We will keep on watching.'
It was not the first time that video footage allegedly of police torture has surfaced in the country.
Early this year, a police colonel was seen punching a suspect whose face was covered with a plastic bag, and recently, another video showed three handcuffed teenage boys, two of them forced to kiss each other.
The colonel in the video was relieved and placed under investigation while the probe into the other case was incomplete because there were no witnesses and the boys did not file a complaint, police said.
source: dailymail
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