Police reel from criticisms of human rights abuses as eleven officers appeared at a disciplinary hearing Friday a torture video allegedly filmed on a mobile phone at a police station in a Manila slum. The cell phone video showed Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug whipping an unidentified robbery suspect and pulling a rope tied to the suspect's genitals. First shown on ABS-CBN Television Tuesday, the video has sparked outrage across the country and calls for a United Nations probe into cases of military and police torture. The graphic recording, which has enraged the public since it was broadcast, showed a man in civilian clothes whipping the man writhing on a white tiled floor. In between blows, the torturer yanked a rope that appeared to be tied to the genetals. Chief Superintendent Roberto Rongavilla, head of a police task force investigating the incident, said a formal complaint against the policemen had been read at a police internal affairs hearing. “These people are now in the custody of the Manila police,” he said. All 11 men had been posted at the Asuncion community police precinct in the high-crime Manila slum district of Tondo, but were suspended after a public outcry over the video sparked a government investigation. Rongavilla said the officer featured in the torture video was the former commander of the precinct. Local news reports said he had denied the allegations. Rongavilla said the man was a suspected robber whose wife had reported him missing since March. “He was part of a group engaged in holdups and bag-snatching,” Rongavilla said. “It appears some other members of the gang had been killed in clashes with the police.” While allegations of torture and extra-judicial killings carried out by police and military are nothing new, the broadcast of the video was the first time such an incident has been seen on public television. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Friday blasted the police for hauling the suspect's wife to police headquarters in Manila and questioning her without the presence of a lawyer. CHR Commissioner Cecilia Quisumbing said the Manila police committed several violations when they invited the wife, hidden under the psuedoname “Ana,” to the police station to get her statement about the alleged death of her husband. Quisumbing said police brought Ana to the station on board a private vehicle and not a police patrol car with government-issued red plates. She said the police did not allow Ana to go home until she had finished her statement.
