The Senate Public Order and Dangerous Drugs committee on Tuesday September 7 completed in less than two hours its probe into the missing 1,004 AK-47 rifles as sought by President Duterte in his July State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Isidro Lozada, the central figure in the alleged sale of the rifles to the New People’s Army (NPA) sometime in 2013, remains at large after the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) testified that they could not locate him.

Senator Ronald ‘’Bato’’ dela Rosa, committee chairman, emphasized that President Duterte ‘’was not updated’’ on the criminal cases pending under the Sandiganbayan’’ against ranking officials and personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

He, nevertheless, conducted the public hearing to comply with the request of the Executive branch, a co-equal branch of government.

Dela Rosa stressed that he conducted the public hearing ‘’with a purpose to monitor bureaucratic compliance and to ascertain if the laws passed by Congress have been implemented as to its purpose.’

PNP officials told dela Rosa that then Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales had approved the filing charges against former Chief Superintendent Raul Petrasanta, former chief of the PNP Firearms and Explosives Office, and 14 others before the Sandiganbayan.

The charges were grave misconduct, serious dishonesty and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the State.

Servando Topacio, former general manager of Twin Pines company which imported the AK-47 rifles, testified that Lozada bought the rifles from Twin Pines for four mining and security agencies in Mindanao.

Topacio stressed that the charges leveled against Twin Pines was dismissed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2015.

Police Director Gil Meneses told Dela Rosa that he and his fellow PNP officials accused because of the missing rifles have no hand in the alleged sale of the AK-47 rifles to the NPA operating in Mindanao.

The Ombudsman had dismissed the charges against Meneses, PC Supt.Estilles and PCSupt. Rentoy III for ‘’lack of disciplinary jurisdiction over them in view of their retirement from the service prior to the filing of the complaint.’’

‘’We can’t and should not be faulted on the alleged sale,’’ Meneses stressed.

The truth is that the rifles were imported by Twin Pines, he added.

Meneses said the PNP merely processed the import documents submitted by Twin Pines, adding the filing of the charges ‘’is unjust to us and our families.’’

‘’We don’t know the transaction between Lozada and Twin Pines,’’ he added.

After the PNP said they are still looking for Lozada, dela Rosa, a former PNP chief, said PNP should use its intelligence in tracking Lozada.

Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong, then head of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), told Dela Rosa that Lozada had confided to him that he sold the rifles to the NPA at P52,000 each in staggered basis and delivered them at parking areas, markets and airport in Butuan.

Lozada, according to Magalong, had admitted to him that he acted as courier to the NPA because of threats against him and this family.

However, Lozada did not put down in writing his verbal confession, Magalong said.

‘’The issues surrounding the case at hand does not simply concern the loss of firearms. The most disturbing and alarming part is the circumvention of our laws and regulations by unscrupulous persons in order to abet communist rebels and enemies of the State by providing and selling these high-powered firearms,’’ del Rosa said.

‘’I spent most of the early years of my career as a lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary. I had firsthand experience in fighting against the communist terrorists of this country. Many police officers, military personnel and innocent civilians have been killed in the hands of this communist-terrorist group. This is why I myself cannot tolerate and condone the alleged selling of rifles to this group,’’ he added.

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