The investigation conducted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) rejected claims that the Senate was under attack on the night of May 13 when pandemonium broke loose over a burst of gunfire that all stemmed from fears that Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa would be arrested.

But as to the allegation that the gun-related incident at the Senate was staged to pave the way for the escape of Dela Rosa, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jonvic Remulla said there is no conclusion yet on the matter.

“The only conclusion is that there was no attack on the Senate,” said Remulla during a press briefing at the Malacañang Palace.

It was Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano who said that the Senate was under attack on the night of May 13, a claim he made through a Facebook live and which he stood by in a press briefing the following day.

But the pieces of evidence gathered by the PNP at the course of the investigation does not support the attack claim.

For one, PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio C. Nartatez, Jr. said that the trajectory of the bullets fired indicated that all of them were outgoing shots, meaning, the bullets were fired from inside the Senate and heading out of the building.

This was supported by the CCTV footage showing Senate Sergeant-At-Arms Mao Aplasca aiming his gun and firing towards unseen armed men.

A total of 44 cartridges were recovered and Nartatez said the investigation revealed that it came from four different firearms. The same investigation revealed that Aplasca and two other members of the Office of the Sergeant-At-Arms fired their guns.

Remulla said the second piece of the evidence that disproves the Senate attack claim was the footage from the CCTVs owned by the Senate.

“The footage was from the Senate CCTV room, not the GSIS. So, the Senate security had full view of the people who were on that floor,” Remulla narrated while the CCTV was being played in the press briefing.

“Take note that none of the elements are in tactical gear, all of them were just in conference, none of them were in formation to attack the Senate – they were just checking out every floor that was in danger,” he added.

In addition, Remulla said the NBI agents seen were not wearing tactical gear, which they usually wear during operations.

“They were dressed as NBI agents clearly identified, but none of them had tactical gear with them,” said Remulla.

Another proof was that at the course of the investigation, it was Aplasca who approached an NBI agent near the bridge that separate the Senate facility to the GSIS building.

NBI director Melvin Matibag earlier said that the NBI agent was among those sent to the GSIS based on the request of the agency’s general manager.

While already subjected to warning shots fired by Aplasca, the NBI agent chose to make cover fire to pave the way for him to disengage and escape from the tense situation.

That NBI agent was later seen in the video reporting to his fellow agents at the GSIS building what happened, starting when Aplasca fired the first shots.

And instead of trading shots, Remulla said the NBI agents were ordered by who appeared to be the team leader not to engage.

For Remulla, the behavior of the NBI before and during the gunfire incident did not support the claim that they were in the attack mode.

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Nartatez forwarded the PNP’s investigation report to Department of Justice Secretary Frederrick Vida before the press briefing concluded on Tuesday afternoon.

Vida said they will still need to validate and verify the investigation report but revealed that they already have a general idea of what transpired.

“We’ve already identified but I don’t want to preclude because the coverage of this investigation is wide,” said Vida when asked who would be held liable over the incident.

For Vida, there is a need to look into the totality of the entire incident and not only on what happened from the night of May `13 up to the early morning of May 14 when Dela Rosa was seen leaving with Sen. Robin Padilla.

“We will be looking into the totality of the circumstances which started May 11,” said Vida.

“As to the culprit, we don’t want to preempt. As to the type of cases that will be filed, again, I don’t want to preempt my panel,” he added.