The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has filed murder charges against seven police officers in Quirino province in connection with the killing of an Indigenous man in May.

The NBI’s Bayombong District Office filed the charges on 5 August with the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Quirino. Police Maj. Fernando G. Manayod and officers Jorey Cumahling, Jimboy Irang, Delmar Salvador, Allan Fiad-ong, Raymundo Littuco and Jonathan Limmong are implicated in the fatal shooting of Jim B. White last 28 May in San Pugo, Nagtipunan.

According to the NBI, White, a member of the Bugkalot-Ilongot Indigenous Cultural Community, had reached an amicable settlement in his pending criminal cases through tribal mediation and was scheduled to surrender voluntarily to authorities on 29 May, the day after he was killed.

An NBI investigation found that police allegedly staged an operation along a remote uphill trail, ambushing and killing White.

NBI medico-legal findings showed that all bullet entry wounds were on White’s back, which contradicted the officers’ claim that he had fired at them first.

The NBI concluded that the killing was committed with “treachery.”