NBI to hunt people sharing raw footage of SAF massacre

MANILA, Philippines - The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will track down people sharing or reposting online raw footage of the slaughter of 44 police commandos in Mamasapano, Maguindanao last Jan. 25.

NBI Cybercrime Division chief Ronald Aguto said the investigation as to how the video ended up on the Internet would not stop at the original source or the first to upload it.

It would extend to people sharing it,   whether on Youtube or Facebook, he added.

Aguto said people sharing the video   violated the Anti Cyber Crime Law. Their IP addresses would be tracked down, he added.

NBI investigators are through establishing the identity of the person who took the video, Aguto said.

The NBI has identified the people considered the first two to post the video on the Internet.

A Christian trader from Kidapawan City first uploaded the video on Facebook, and   his IP address was traced as the very first to upload the footage online.

The video’s source lives in a town in Mindanao known for clashes between government troops and Moro rebels.

The man shared the video privately among his Facebook friends through his cellphone.

One of them, another Christian trader from Davao, downloaded a copy and posted the video to make it appear that he was the original source.

His post was shared publicly, and the video showing a police commando being finished off went viral.

Aguto said the video frames taken from their phones after these were subjected to forensics in Manila matched the ones uploaded on Facebook and YouTube.

“This means the videos were in their original form and not spliced,” he said. “If they were spliced, some images would not be the same.”

Each video has about 10,600 frames.

The NBI would be able to identify the armed men and the original source of the footage once the authenticity of the videos has been proven.

Thereafter the CCD would forward the result to the joint NBI-National Prosecution Service panel for the filing of appropriate charges.