Courtesy: PBS
THE chairman of the House Committee on Human Rights on Thursday said the panel is seriously considering inviting several of the families of victims, especially the minors, in its announced probe into the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during ex-President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s bloody drug war.
During the daily press briefing at the House of Representatives, panel chairman and Manila Rep. Bienvenido “Benny” M. Abante Jr. said they are also set to invite some of the former police and government officials of the Duterte administration who may have played a key role in the drug campaign.
“Ngayon, pinag-aaralan po namin kung sino ba talaga ang iimbitahan diyan. For example, like all the victims, pero hindi po lahat ng biktima,” Abante said.
“We’re going to choose especially iyong mga victim, iyong mga magulang ng victims ng mga minors, for example,” he added.
Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, which ran from July 2016 to December 2019, killed thousands of Filipinos that included at least 122 minors, according to the groups World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center (CLRDC).
These minors, the groups said, were either killed as direct targets, killed as proxies, killed as a result of mistaken identities, and the so-called “collateral damage.”
“We’re going to invite the former, for example like the chief of the PNP that was actually involved in this and perhaps the NCRPO Command and others in the Cabinet of the former president,” Abante noted.
However, Abante said they are not keen on inviting Duterte to the probe and, as a matter of parliamentary courtesy, Sen. Bato dela Rosa who also became chief of the PNP during Duterte’s term.
“Hindi na po. I don’t even think that if we invite them that they will be able to attend. Pero iimbitahan po namin iyong talagang nanduon, for example, like Gen. [Oscar] Albayalde – very much involved iyan and perhaps we will also be able to invite the former DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra to shed light on all these things,” the Manila legislator alleged.
Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, a vice chairman of the human rights panel, agreed not to send an invitation to Sen. Dela Rosa as a matter of parliamentary courtesy to members of the Senate.
“I think the House really gives primacy to the parliamentary courtesy principle … Sen. Bato is a sitting senator, so we maintain parliamentary courtesy,” Adiong said. (END)
