‘KILL KILL KILL’ (10)

UMABOT sa 107 kompanyang POGO sa 402 ang patuloy sa kanilang operasyon. Inamin ito ni Dr. Winston John Casio, tagapagsalita ng Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) sa “Kapihan sa QC.” Apat lamang sa 107 ang naisara ng PAOCC, aniya. Madugo ang record ng mga kompanyang POGO sa bansa. Napasok ng mga elementong kriminal ang kanilang operasyon, aniya at masusing tinitingnan ng PAOCC ang posibilidad na hingin kay BBM ang kanilang agarang pagsasara at pagtatapos ng kanilang operasyon sa bansa.

Umabot sa 66 na bangkay ang natagpuan sa mga pasilidad ng mga POGO, aniya. Sa raid sa 10-ektarya compound sa Porac, Pampanga, noong nakalipas na linggo, may natagpuan ang PAOCC na siyam na bangkay, mga kasangkapan sa pambubugbog, at dalawang kuwarto na puno tilamsik ng dugo ng tao. Sangkot ang mga kompanyang POGO sa krimen ng human trafficking, torture, murder, prostitution, money laundering, at swindling, at iba pa, aniya.

Sa isang executive session sa Senado noong Martes, ipinanukala sa Office of the President na ideklara sila na banta sa pambansang seguridad ng bansa. Kung maaari, tuluyan na sibakin, baklasin, at palayasin sa Filipinas. Lumabas sa executive session ang panawagan na paalisin ang mga POGO sa Covelandia Resort sa Cavite. Sangkot sila sa mga money laundering operations.

Lumabas rin hindi napatunayan ni Alice Guo, ang suspendidong alkalde ng Bamban, Tarlac, na Filipino siya. Umalis sa Filipinas ang ama at kahit ang kanyang ina. Hindi Filipino si Guo at ito ay isang Intsik galing sa China. Patuloy na nagmamagaling si Francis Tolentino sa isyu ng POGO. Panig siya sa China. Hindi maikubli na traydor. Pinapangalagaan niya ang China sa isyu ng POGO. Mukhang utos ito ni Gongdi sa kanya.

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SA PANGALAWANG tsapter ng aking aklat “KILL KILL KILL Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines; Crimes Against Humanity vs. Rodrigo Duterte Et. Al.,” ipinaliwanag ko ang ilang yugto sa bigong digmaan kontra droga ni Gongdi. Dahil marami , namili kami ng ilang yugto na kakaiba at madaling maunawaan.

STORIES about summary executions do not find easy and immediate closure. Press reports, especially in the years 2016 and 2017, kept on flowing on a daily basis about the extrajudicial killings (EJKs), necessitating countercheck to verify their veracity and character. For our part, independent confirmations have to be pursued through talks with families of victims and witnesses. We cannot rely on press reports because they are insufficient. Moreover, a number of EJKs went unreported in the mass media. We neither read them in print media, notably the newspapers – both broadsheet and tabloid dailies, which scream with headlines on EJK incidents, nor watch or hear news over radio and television. We do not find them in nontraditional media either, primarily social media.

The incongruity of PNP data and claims from other sources, independent or not, was a source of bewilderment, albeit amusement, even as law enforcement agencies like PNP claimed success on the war on drugs on the basis of the number of deaths through EJKs. Lately, it has been found out that the number of listed official deaths was underreported. The issue of “falsified” causes of deaths has surfaced. Many EJK victims have death certificates, where it had been stated in unequivocal terms that they died of natural causes. The official causes of death were different from the truth that they were shot dead by either police officers or vigilante agents, purportedly belonging to the anti-illegal drug teams.

Furthermore, the issue of underreported deaths is being compounded by sloppy police works on the investigative aspects of summary executions. Police reporting was wanting in its scope, diligence, veracity, and authenticity. Lawyers, who have been involved in the investigation and prosecution of police officers in these EJKs, have found out that police reports on those violent deaths lacked details and incurred alterations to justify the “nanlaban” (he fought back) narratives. Their preoperative and postoperative reports of the police buy bust operations contained questionable details. Most police reports were spot reports on what transpired but because they hardly had followup operations, they did not have progress reports. It was a big question if these probes were deliberately muddled up to create confusion and lead interested parties like lawyers and human right groups to different conclusions.

Families of EJK victims have been complaining they hardly have access to police reports. In most instances, police either declined the requests for police reports or avoided the families, who demanded police reports on buy bust operations plans, or spot and progress reports. Police reports are documents to which the public should have access by all means. But the Office of Solicitor General, through the erstwhile Solicitor General Jose Calida, once ruled them as records that have national security dimensions to which the public is forbidden to get access.

Because of the lack of access to these police reports, certain families of EJK victims have hardly pursued court cases against the involved police officers. They have been discouraged by the absence of official documents from which to build court cases against the police officers. This was not all. The war on drugs has become more complicated and confused by the use and involvement of unidentified masked vigilante forces, who went on sprees of abductions and murders of suspected drug users and pushers. Because they were not identified, the victims’ families could not pursue any legal remedy or court cases against them.

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FOUR MURDERS
WE talked to four mothers, whose sons and even grandsons were slain by police officers – all in the name of war on drugs. Three mothers – Sara Celis, Brenda Victorio, and Elena Gonzales – came from the depressed communities in the North Caloocan City district of Bagong Silang, while one mother – Natividad Castillo – came from Manila’s workingmen’s district of Tondo. The four mothers have given their stories for inclusion in the crimes against humanity charges against Duterte and his minions before the ICC. They coursed them through lawyer Edwin Fernandez of the Rise Up for Life and for Rights, a non-government organization (NGO ) that represents families of victims of EJKs in various fora, including the ICC. In other instances, some quarters opposing the war on drugs supplied us with details on certain cases of EJKs. Nevertheless, we were gratified by their inordinate drive and enthusiasm to explain the side of the victims, the silenced ones.

We have likewise dug the cases of other EJK victims, mostly high profile. They are the celebrated 2016 Payatas Massacre, the treacherous murders of father and son Renato and Jaypee Bertes of Pasay City, Joselito Gonzales of Antipolo City, the murder of the 17-year Japanese-Filipino student Hideyoshi Kawata, among others. In these instances of EJKs, we have noted that it was the families of the victims, who have suffered most because the victims were mostly breadwinners. The social stigma attached to the death of their family members to EJKs was devastating, to say the least.

Their families could not ask assistance from their barangays and local officials. In almost all instances, barangay and local officials refused to extend any help to their families. Local officials took a distance from providing help to families of EJK victims, believing this act could spell doom to their political careers and adversely affect their political standing and chances in the next political exercises. In most cases, families of victims go to the Church, mainly its social action units, or civil society organizations, which have been formed to help the families of victims in the form of legal and financial assistance. There is no selfhelp among them.

Every EJK, it appears, is sui generis, or one of its kind. Every EJK has its own life and dynamics, or even a set of peculiarities. Families of victims, who have resolutely brought their cases before the bar of justice and follow the rule of law and its flipside, due process, have to live with the circuitous processes, leading to despair, boredom and surrender. In many instances, they get tired, bored, and irked by the twists and turns or the unpredictable nature of the legal processes. The explanation is that they largely have the wherewithal and patience for the long-drawn processes. In many instances, they have fallen prey to cooptation, leading them to issue affidavits of desistance and motions to withdraw from the court suits they had earlier filed. In one instance, the wife of an EJK victim has engaged in prostitution to eke out a living. The devil is in the process – and in the details too. (Itutuloy)