JUSTICE Secretary Menardo Guevarra yesterday appealed to the families of victims killed by the police in the government’s violent war against illegal drugs to file their complaint directly to the Department of Justice, adding that if they feel threatened, they can be included in the government’s Witness Protection Program (WPP).
“I encourage the victim’s families to go directly to the DOJ and file their complaints with us.
If they need legal assistance, we will refer them to the Public Attorney’s Office. If they need security protection, we’ll cover them under the Witness Protection Program. The DOJ will take it from there,” Guevarra said.
The DOJ chief made the statement in response to statements made by families of the victims that they have been silent because they fear for their lives, and because they have little trust in the country’s justice system.
Guevarra had previously made similar appeals, including when it released the matrix on the DOJ’s review of the 52 “nanlaban cases” whose files were submitted to the department by the Philippine National Police-Internal Affairs Service.
Guevarra’s offer came amid the decision of International Criminal Court Special Prosecutor Karim Khan to defer the conduct of their investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Duterte administration in pursuit of its bloody war against persons suspected of involvement in the multi-billion illegal drugs industry.
The administration had moved to stop the ICC probe, saying that justice in the Philippines remains dependable and that the Duterte government had initiated its own investigation into the allegations that innocent and helpless people became victims of the administration’s bloody illegal drugs campaign.
Khan had said that the ICC will continue to receive and analyze additional information to determine the future of the investigation.
The Free Legal Assistance Group yesterday formally requested Khan to lift the suspension and resume the court’s investigation into the drug war killings.
In a letter-request to Khan, the group said that while they understand the reason for the temporary deferment of the probe, the DOJ review of the 52 drug war killings from 2016 to 2020 only covers a fraction of the killings since Duterte came into power.
“Of the 52 cases allegedly investigated by the DOJ, only 36 occurred within 1 July 2016 and 16 March 2019, the period covered by the ICC investigation. This figure is but 0.12 to 0.3 percent of the 12,000 to 30,000 persons killed during the period,” the FLAG said.
It said that “not a single killing” that occurred between November 1, 2011 to June 30, 2016 in Davao city was included among the 52 cases supposedly investigated.
“While FLAG is aware that the DOJ has reportedly reviewed some 300 cases, the parameters, scope and results of such review have been withheld from the public,” the group said, adding that it was misleading to label the DOJ action as an “investigation” since the agency merely conducted a review of the documents provided by the PNP-IAS.
“It is apparent from the matrix made public by the DOJ that the department did not confirm the documents, merely relied on them, identify others who were responsible for the killings including officials in the chain of command who were complicit in the deaths, identify any failure by police authorities to take reasonable measures that could have prevented the killings, and identify policies and systematic failures that may have contributed to the killings,” FLAG said.
The group likewise said the DOJ excluded any findings or conclusions but “mere observations” on the lack, or paucity, of documents provided by the PNP-IAS, while witnesses or survivors were not interviewed, nor family members of the victims did not participate in the probe.
The FLAG said what was worse was that the DOJ placed the burden of proof upon the victims and their heirs, contrary to Philippine laws and jurisprudence such as the 2013 Supreme Court’s ruling in Aguilar vs DOJ where the justices held that “the burden is upon the accused to prove clearly and sufficiently the elements of defense, being an affirmative allegation, otherwise the conviction of the accused is inescapable.”
