DOJ evaluates Task Force probe of NDFP members death

From the Philippine News Agency (May 31, 2021): DOJ evaluates Task Force probe of NDFP members death (By Benjamin Pulta)

PNA file photo

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is evaluating whether the Administrative Order (AO) 35 Task Force will investigate the deaths of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) members Rustico Tan and two others.

DOJ Secretary Menardo Guervarra told the media on Monday they will conduct a preliminary assessment of the incidents, adding that an order for the said assessment has already been issued.

"The AO 35 mechanism has been duly advised to start rolling," he said in a text message.

Guevarra previously said no witnesses have come forward to tell authorities of what they know, hence the AO 35 is having a hard time looking into cases.

The 80-year-old Tan, a former priest, was killed by still unidentified gunmen at his house in Camotes Island, Cebu on Friday night. He was arrested in 2017 in Santander town in connection with murder charges attributed to the New People's Army. The charges were later dismissed.

Also on Friday, the Police Regional Office-6 said 75-year-old Reynaldo Bocala (alias Bading), identified as a finance officer of the Kilusang Rehiyon-Panay and a reported NDFP consultant, and his alleged aide, 60-year-old Willy Epago, died after shooting it out with authorities who were serving warrants of arrest in Pavia, Iloilo.

The Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) On Extra-Legal Killings, Enforced Disappearances, Torture and Other Grave Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of Persons was created under AO 35 in 2012 and chaired by the DOJ secretary.

It is the government’s institutional machinery dedicated to the resolution of unsolved cases of political violence in the form of extra-legal killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and other grave violations of the right to life, liberty and security of persons.

Other members of the IAC are the Chair of the Presidential Human Rights Committee, secretaries of the Department of the Interior and Local Government and Department of National Defense, Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs, chiefs of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police, and the National Bureau of Investigation director.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1142064