Cebu Council Inventory Request ‘Ultra Vires’ – Crame

● PNP-HPG top brass in Camp Crame says Cebu Council resolution is ‘ultra vires’ act and cannot be given effect.

Top official of the PNP Highway Patrol Group (HPG) in Camp Crame has rejected the request of the Cebu City Council asking for an inventory report on all vehicles impounded at their impounding area in Lahug to help the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) speed up its probe over the ambush of lawyer Noel Archival and his two companions.

HPG Director Arrazad Panuelo Subong said the resolution of the Cebu City Council is an “ultra vires” act or void and cannot be given any effect.

“No rights can be conferred by and be inferred from a resolution, which is nothing but an embodiment of what the lawmaking body has to say in the light of attendant circumstances,” Subong said in a letter he sent to Cebu City Hall.

Councilor Nestor Archival, brother of the slain lawyer, requested the HPG officials in Camp Crame to let their office in Cebu City furnish the NBI of the inventory of vehicles impounded by them at their impounding area at Sitio Sudlon, Lahug.

According to the reports, the suspects who ambushed Archival used two vehicles which are reportedly included among the vehicles impounded by HPG. Based from this report, Councilor Archival wanted that the HPG officials to submit to the NBI an inventory of their impounded vehicles.

Subong, in his letter to the council, explained the vehicles impounded by them at the HPG impounding area are considered pieces of evidence in the criminal cases filed by them before the courts and other quasi-judicial bodies and cannot be divulged.

He cited a Supreme Court ruling in Chavez vs. Public Estates Authority that the High Tribunal recognized matters which the Court has long considered as confidential such as “information on investigations of crimes by law enforcement agencies before the prosecution of the accused.”

However, Subong informed the Cebu City officials that the HPG-Investigation Management Division had already filed
administrative cases against former HPG-7 Regional Director Romualdo Eglesia and other HPG officials.

The administrative case is separate from the criminal charges that the NBI had filed against Eglesia and four other police officials for their alleged involvement in the ambush-slaying of Archival and two others in Barangay Corro, Dalaguete last February 18.

Aside from Eglesia, the other accused are Senior Insp. Eduardo Mara, HPG provincial chief; Senior Insp. Joselito Lerion, HPG 7 Special Operations Team head; SPO4 Edwin Galan, HPG 7 designated custodian; and PO1 Alex Bacani.