A doctor accused of shooting to death a 19-year old student outside a bar in Davao City predawn last July 2 has turned out to be a son of a Philippine National Police 1-star general who ironically had just passed away very recently.

The family of Dr. Marvin Rey Andrew Pepino, a non-uniformed personnel of the Police Regional Office 1 in Southern Mindanao, I was told was still mourning the recent passing of their patriarch, the late Brigadier Gen. Marvin Manuel Pepino when the former got involved in the deadly shooting incident.

The late Brig. Gen. Pepino’s last assignment was as director of the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group. Prior to that, he used to be assigned with the Police Regional Office 4-A and the PNP Highway Patrol Group. He got his star-rank as Deputy Regional Director for Administration of the Police Regional Office 8 in Eastern Visayas.

The family of Amierkhan Mangacop, the young student reportedly shot by Dr. Pepino is now crying for justice with them saying he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That place was called the Lugar Café and Bar.

The Mangacop family’s lawyer said that the victim was wearing a helmet suggesting that he merely arrived in the area on board his motorcycle to fetch one of his cousins and was not really involved in the melee.

The lawyer explained that as CCTV footages have shown, the victim, still wearing his motorcycle helmet, arrived at the scene where Pepino was in a scuffle with his attackers. When Pepino fell, the CCTV footage showed him standing up and pursuing Mangacop who was then walking away from the bar with his cousin.

The lawyer said that Pepino then shot the student seven times. The victim died while being taken to the hospital. The National Bureau of Investigation has sent its own team to investigate the incident following a request from the Mangacops who questioned the local police’s accounts of the incident.

The NBI on Monday conducted a reenactment of the scene in line with its effort to conduct a parallel investigation into the case and amid the claims of the victim’s family that local police investigators appear to have been ‘bias’ against them.

“The PNP (Philippine National Police) is not impartial because despite these footage, they refuse to correct their investigation report and they still adhere to the initial report [that the shooting] was [in] self-defense,” a Philippine Daily Inquirer report quoting the Mangacop lawyer.

Right now, the victim’s family is crying for justice and are crying foul over social media reports that the doctor was forced to fire at him when he attacked the latter. Right now, the Davao City police and the PRO11 must ensure that their investigation will not be muddled by any contradicting claims or allegations of bias simply because the accused is a son of a retired police general who also happened to be a Davao City son.

Shortly after the incident happened, the PRO11 confirmed that the accused is a Non-Uniformed Personnel of the the Southern Mindanao police force.

“We assure all the parties and the public that this PRO will not, in any way, impede the legal process and guarantee a thorough, fair, and unbiased investigation; and appropriate criminal charges shall be filed accordingly,” the PRO said in a statement.

PRO11 spokesperson, Major Eudisan Gultiano also was quoted as saying that although Pepino is a non-uniformed personnel, he could carry a gun as long as it is licensed. The gun used by the suspect turned out to be a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol.

The local police must also answer questions which were left hanging in the aftermath of the shooting incident. Was the firearm really registered? Did the accused present his License to Own and Possess Firearm/Firearm Registration/Permit-to-Carry-Firearm-Outside-of-Residence?

If it was indeed a licensed gun complete with a PTCFOR, then it was also very obvious that a violation of the gun rules specified in the PTCFOR has been clearly violated. The PTCFOR rules explicitly says that the gun should not be brought inside public establishments including bars and other places of entertainment.

By the way, let me congratulate the Quezon City Police District headed by Brig. Gen. Remus Medina for showing what an honest-to-goodness police visibility means amid an instruction from DILG chief Benhur Abalos and PNP Officer-in-Charge, Lieutenant Gen. Vic Danao to further clean the streets of crimes.

Effective police visibility, said Secretary Abalos would result to less criminality and presence of firearms and other deadly weapons as criminals are always afraid of uniformed and plainclothes policemen that are always ready to arrest them.

This is really true. Maximum police visibility has been known as a very effective deterrent in the commission and solution of crimes in the country. A very good example of police visibility took place in Timog Avenue in Q.C. last Sunday morning.

I learned that patrolling members of the QCPD Station 10 arrested a 47-year old man and his 25-year old son after they created trouble outside a Timog restobar and fired a gun indiscriminately.

It turned out that the suspects got irked due to a parking problem and fired shots in the air triggering panic in the area. However, they ended up being arrested immediately by patrolling QCPD Station 10 officers in the area.

An unlicensed caliber .38 was recovered from the suspects who tried to even hide the weapon at their wagon’s engine compartment. Both suspects are now facing charges for alarm and scandal and violation of Republic Act 10591 or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulations Act of 2013.