The Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices, dismissed the criminal complaint for carnapping and administrative charges for abuse of authority against Supt. Santiago Rapiz and Police Officer 3 Rodel Delos Reyes, and denied the motion for suspension filed by the wife of a businessman in Bacolod City about four years ago.

A copy of the decision furnished the DAILY STAR by Rapiz yesterday showed that   Rapiz, then Station commander of Bacolod City Police Station 4, and Delos Reyes, who was a case investigator, were accused by Rosalie Jaypee-Garcia after the policeman filed complaints for attempted parricide and attempted murder against her for allegedly trying to poison her husband, Jesus Garcia.

Rapiz is now the head of the Bacolod City Police Special Operations Group of which Delos Reyes is a member.

The decision was recommended by Assistant Ombudsman for Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices Eulogio Cecilio and approved by Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro on December 2011, although the respondents received a copy of the decision only yesterday.

The complainant claimed that the policemen maliciously charged her and her two other relatives for allegedly mixing kerosene gas in the juice of her estranged husband and that the evidences presented against her were only fabricated.

She said Rapiz maliciously and unlawfully labeled her and her mother as suspects even before a complaint was filed against them, while they charged Delos Reyes for reflecting her name in the police blotter as suspect.

She claimed that Rapiz and her estranged husband were friends and that Rapiz used his power as police officer and even brought the specimen in question to the crime laboratory at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Iloilo City in favor of her estranged husband.

Rapiz, however, stressed that Garcia is not his friend and they only met on February 22, 2008 when he filed complaints against his wife, and that he did not receive any considerations from Garcia.

Graft Investigation and Prosecution Officer Marilyn Israel-Torres, who reviewed the charges, said that the respondents’ defenses are worthy of full faith and credit, while Rosalie Jaypee-Garcia’s allegations are purely speculative and wanting clear and convincing evidence.

Israel-Torres also said that there is nothing in the records of the case that would prove that connivance existed between Rapiz and Mr. Garcia in fabricating the evidence against Rosalie Jaypee-Garcia, and that she was not accurate when she stated in her complaint that Rapiz delivered the substance in question for laboratory examination at the PNP headquarters in Iloilo.

Rowena Guanzon, legal counsel of the complainant, said that they are no longer filing any motion to contest the ruling of the Ombudsman but she maintained that the accusations against her client were only fabricated by her estranged husband, whom she accused of wife battering.

Guanzon added that attempted parricide and attempted murder charges filed against her client were already dropped by the Department of Justice.*APN

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