Sulu incident a ‘misencounter’, PNP maintains

THE Philippine National Police (PNP) on Wednesday insisted that what happened in Sulu between the police and military was a “misencounter.”

Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac, PNP spokesman, said the police did not know that the four men on board the car they stopped at a checkpoint in Jolo were soldiers.

“In that sense, there was a misencounter because firing against our colleagues can be called misencounter,” Banac said in a television interview.

Banac also said that the word “misencounter” may have a different definition from the military parlance.

Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay, Army chief, branded the inciden a “rubout”.

Banac said that the incident should not have happened.

After knowing that the people flagged down at the checkpoint were military, police should have allowed them to pass through, Banac said.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is investigating the incident.

The nine policemen involved in the shooting are detained at the Sulu Provincial Police Office pending results of the investigation.

On Monday, a major, a captain and two enlisted personnel were killed by policemen who claimed that the four allegedly tried to flee and aimed their firearms, resulting in the shooting.