ILOILO City – The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Western Visayas has stepped in to investigate the killing of nine Tumandok leaders and the arrest of 17 others in a joint military and police operations in Tapaz, Capiz and Calinog, Iloilo two days before 2020 ended.
Atty. Jonnie Dabuco, CHR Region 6 director, said the commission already started its own investigation last week.
He told Panay News yesterday they already gathered some documents and affidavits from the families of the indigenous peoples, many of whom have been red-tagged by the military for their vocal opposition to militarization in their communities and in recent years the construction of the Jalaur mega dam.
This investigation, according to Dabuco, was CHR-6’s motu propio initiative to establish if the raiding teams from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Region 6, Police Regional Office 6, and Philippine Army’s 12th Infantry Battalion indeed violated human rights in serving search warrants to the respondents at dawn on Dec. 30.
The CIDG-6, the lead unit in the series of operations, alleged that those killed were members of the New People’s Army (NPA) who fought back when operatives served search warrants for illegal possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives.
“We have also to establish if they (alleged rebels) really fought back or resisted during the serving of search warrants,” Dabuco said.
The CHR, he added, would also like to know if some of the recovered firearms were planted or not.
“The burden of proof is on the part of the raiding teams – how they would explain allegations of the families that there were harassments when police raided their houses,” said Debuco.
In an earlier interview with Panay News, Marilyn Chiva, one of the arrested Tumandok in Calinog, denied owning the recovered weapons from her house. They were planted, she claimed.
In Tapaz, village council member Ludovisa Catamin of Barangay Roosevelt alleged that the policemen and soldiers entered their house and arrested her son Rolen based on a search warrant.
She said they were ordered out while a policeman entered their house and went out saying firearms had been found and seized. Catamin denied that the firearms were theirs.
For his part, Police Lieutenant Colonel Gervacio Balmaceda, chief of the CIDG Regional Field Unit-6, said the coordinated operation involved 28 search warrants “based on information from civilians about the presence of personalities with high powered firearms and explosives.”
Balmaceda did not identify the judge who issued the search warrants but some included those issued by branches of the Manila Regional Trial Court.
Balmaceda claimed the nine slain NPA rebels resisted arrest and tried to fight back during the serving of search warrants, prompting policemen to returned fire.
Seven of the suspected NPAs were from Calinog – three from Barangay Masaroy and four from Barangay Garangan.
In Tapaz, those arrested were from barangays Roosevelt (four), Tacayan (two) and Lahug, Aglinab, Acuña, and Nayawan (one each).
The suspects who died were from barangays Lahug (three), Layawan (two) and Tacayan, Aglinab, Acuña, and Daan Sur (one each).
According to Balmaceda, charges for violation of Republic Act 10591, or illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of explosives have been filed against the 16 arrested persons.
On the other hand, the Legal Cooperation Cluster (LCC) of the Regional Task Force in Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict in Western Visayas squashed allegations that the deaths of the nine suspected Counter Terrorist Group (CTGs) personalities were premeditated.
Had it been the intention of the CIDG to kill the subjects of the search warrants, none would have been arrested at all, LCC chairperson, Flosemer Chris Gonzales, pointed out.
“It doesn’t make sense that the CIDG applied search warrants if their only goal was to kill. Our men and women at the CIDG are honorable and decent law enforcement officers. It is their sworn duty to serve and to protect, and not to kill people,” said Gonzales.
He reiterated that police officers who were of the operations have no personal grudges with any of the nine suspects./PN
