Mother of slain DOTA player sues P’sinan cops

BAGUIO CITY -- The mother of slain 17-year-old DOTA player Joshua P. Laxamana recently filed a criminal complaint against several members of the Pangasinan police force before the Office of the Ombudsman for reportedly planting evidence and obstructing justice during a shootout on August 2018.

Christine L. Pascual wrote in her complaint that her son went missing on August 15, but it turns out he headed to Baguio City in order to go to a closed computer shop.

He and his friends reportedly went home on August 16.

After Joshua failed to return home, his worried mother filed a missing person report on August 20. The following morning, the barangay tanods informed her that there was a spot report from Rosales, Pangasinan concerning her son.

She quickly headed to the station and talked to PC Insp. John L. Corpuz, Chief of Police of Rosales.

He told her that Joshua fought with the cops on August 17, so they had no choice but to shoot him. The boy sustained three gunshot wounds in the chest and one in an arm.

Apparently, Joshua was linked to four cases involving “akyat-bahay,” an operation known in the country in which robbers climb homes to steal items.

He reportedly ignored the police checkpoint in Barangay Bakit-Bakit, Rosales, Pangasinan, he thus was chased and gunned down by the cops at the Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway (TPLEx) access road.

According to the police blotter, it was PO2 Arvin G. Abella, Roy A. Sarmiento, and Ronald L. Casreno who received a call from Balungao Police Station to anticipate the boy’s arrival.

The three cops chased after Joshua, and it was then that the shootout ensued. Joshua died because of the shots, and the mobile car used by the cops also sustained shots.

Pascual insisted that it was not her son who was riding a motorcycle that went past the police checkpoint in Brgy. Bakit-Bakit, since her son does not know how to drive a motorcycle.

At the same time, he does not own any firearms, nor is he involved in illegal drugs.

She had his autopsy done at the UP College of Medicine. Dr. Raquel B. Del Rosario-Fortun, a forensic pathologist, told her – but without complete certainty – that the gunshot wound in his arm indicates that it was a “defense type injury.”

Included in her complaint are the cops already mentioned above, including SPO3 Oliver Vingua, SPO1 Hilario Taquiqui Jr., PCInsp. Lady Ellen Maranion, and PCInsp. Emeterio Macaraeg.

Dr. Adan Arlie Guieb of the Rosales Infirmary Unit, the doctor who performed the autopsy of Laxamana, was also included in the complaint.

Pascual wants them charged for violating Section 38 of R.A. 10591 for planting bullets and guns, Section 29 of R.A. 9156 for planting drugs, and Section 1(b), (f), and (i) in relation to Section 2 of P.D. 1829 for obstruction of justice.