PNP says credibility of its probe on Glorietta 2 blast can be questioned in court

By Ronron
November 5, 2007

A day after Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) disputed the gas explosion theory of the Philippine National Police (PNP) over the October 19 incident at Glorietta 2 that killed 11 persons and wounded over a hundred others, the PNP on Monday said skeptics can question the credibility of the probe it conducted in the proper court.

In a news conference at Camp Crame, Quezon City, Director Geary Barias, commander of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) and spokesman of the Multi-Agency Investigation Task Force (MIATF) for the Glorietta 2 blast, maintained that the pieces of evidence gathered by investigators really point initially to gas explosion.

“It was really gas that caused the explosion coming from the basement. They did some swabbing at the basement and even outside of the building, they even went as far as Landmark just to make sure. That swabbing activity is to find out whether explosive was really used in that disaster. So they ruled out explosives because first, they could not find any part of the improvised explosive device,” Barias said.

Barias reiterated, however, that they do not have any final conclusion yet as of Monday because the MIATF is still determining what triggered the gas explosion. This means that the bombing angle is not yet totally ruled out, he said.

In a news conference last Sunday, ALI President and Chief Executive Officer Jaime Ayala said the local and foreign experts they hired have concluded the highly unlikelihood of a gas explosion, citing facts from the basement.

“For us, we have a forum to question our credibility, the credibility of our witnesses, the pieces of evidence that we have gathered, the integrity of these pieces of evidence that we gathered… And that is the court,” Barias said, apparently reacting to the contradictory findings of the ALI-hired experts.

But Barias expressed confidence that the police can defend its case, citing the thoroughness of its investigation.

“That is precisely the reason why it’s taking us a long time to investigate this case because we want to be sure we really have a case and that we can win our case,” he said.

Barias said the would-be respondents to a possible case can always have “very good lawyers to scrutinize the method” of the PNP investigation, “the credibility of our investigators, the pieces of evidence that we have.”

Barias confirmed that indeed, ALI furnished the MIATF a copy of its experts’ analysis and findings, and they will look into the report.

“We gave that to our investigators. Let’s see how they go about with their investigation, even giving consideration to these experts… Whether that would be material to our investigation or not, we leave that to our investigators,” Barias said.

But based on the pronouncements of Ayala on Sunday, Barias said there is nothing for the PNP to reconsider at this time.

“As I said, we haven’t concluded our investigation yet so as to the request that we look into all probable angles, that’s what we are doing,” Barias said./DMS