By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent
THE Jan. 30 accidental shooting of a girl at the Oro Christian Grace School has already reached the attention of Fort Bonifacio and a military investigation is ongoing, said 4th Infantry Division commander Franco Nemesio Gacal yesterday.
Maj. Gen. Gacal said the Army’s main headquarters was already informed, through the Office of the Provost Marshal, “for the proper conduct of (an) investigation.”
The Army’s provost marshal basically serves as the Army’s policing arm. It acts on matters pertaining to the enforcement of discipline, law and order and safety involving Army soldiers.
The Army has stepped in because the pistol that figured in the accidental shooting is allegedly military-issued and traced to Army Lt. Col. Odilon Barrientos. The gun is now under police custody.
Police said it was Barrientos’s son, a 13-year-old 7th grader, who brought the gun to the Macasandig school. The same boy was also caught on video toying with a grenade while he was in a learning facility together with other students, all boys.
Gacal said he was informed that an investigation into the accident is ongoing to determine the extent of Lt. Col. Barrientos’s liability.
As a matter of protocol in the Armed Forces, Gacal said, Barrientos’s mother unit “will be the one to conduct [the] investigation of its organic personnel, but we can also assist them.”
“Right now,” he said, Barrientos’s “carrying units” are the “Hqs” and “Hqs Svc group, Phil. Army.”
He said Barrientos has just taken up the Command and General Staff Course, the highest military education for future generals.
On Thursday, Gacal said Barrientos is with the Army Signal Regiment in Fort Bonifacio. The lieutenant colonel, according to the police, has a home at Tejero Subdivision in Patag, this city.
The 4th ID, he said, “gave pieces of advice to subject officer” on the “proper safekeeping of the issued firearms.”
