Businessman Atong Ang is ready to face the murder and serious illegal detention complaint filed against him by families of the missing sabungeros with the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to a report on Unang Balita on Monday.
“We maintain my client’s innocence,” Atty. Gabriel Villareal, Ang’s legal counsel, said.
Last week, the families filed a complaint for multiple murder, serious illegal detention, enforced disappearance, direct bribery, and obstruction of justice against Ang.
Authorities confirmed that the affidavits of whistleblower Julie "Dondon" Patidongan and his siblings, Jose and Elakim, were included in the complaint.
Patidongan previously claimed that Ang was the mastermind behind the abduction of the sabungeros who were reported missing from 2021 to 2022. He also told authorities that more than 100 sabungeros were abducted, killed, and then dumped at Taal Lake.
Recently, he said his two brothers have information about the case of the missing sabungeros as both worked for Ang. Patidongan claimed that his brothers were ordered by Ang to hide in Cambodia in 2022.
Villareal slammed Patidongan's remarks as “flawed, self-serving, and unsubstantiated.”
“It is lamentable though that the public is being deceived by the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and being the master manipulator that he is, has embedded himself among the victims of the tragedy that he himself has perpetrated,” the lawyer said.
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