The families of labour organisers and activists who were killed in police raids in 2021 filed a complaint with a UN body after domestic legal remedies supposedly failed them. PHOTO: THE PHILIPPINE INQUIRER/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
MANILA (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN): The families of labour organisers and activists who were killed in several simultaneous police operations in 2021 on Nov 8 filed a complaint at the United Nations Human Rights Committee against former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte and two former officials of the Philippine National Police.
Liezl Asuncion, wife of trade union leader Manny Asuncion, and Rosenda Lemita, mother of activist Ana Marie Evangelista, filed separate complaints at the UN body after domestic legal remedies supposedly failed them.
The women’s complaints accused Mr Duterte, former Philippine National Police chief Guillermo Eleazar and police colonel Lito Patay of violating the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Philippines signed in 1966.
“We promise that we will not stop until Duterte and his ‘Davao Boys’ are held accountable for their crimes against the people,” Ms Asuncion told reporters.
Col Patay was supposedly a part of the “Davao Boys”, a group of police officers whom Mr Duterte summoned to Metro Manila at the height of his deadly war on drugs, for which he already faces charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court.
Also named in the complaints were 17 more police officers, who were mostly assigned to the Southern Luzon police command.
Ms Asuncion’s husband was among nine individuals who were killed in the police operation that involved simultaneous raids in the Calabarzon region on March 7, 2021, which have come to be known as the 2021 Bloody Sunday raids.
The deaths in the Bloody Sunday raids included six who were killed in Rizal, two in Batangas, and one in Cavite.
Assisted by the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), Ms Asuncion said she tried to seek recourse in the courts and charged 20 police officers over the killings.
However, Department of Justice prosecutors are still reviewing their initial dismissal of the charges purportedly for lack of evidence.
“We’ve been doing everything that we can to achieve justice,” Ms Asuncion said.
NUPL president Ephraim Cortez said the case has a good chance at the UN body because they had sufficient eyewitness affidavits to establish that the victims were killed after they were “overpowered” by the police.
“If we remember, what they said was that Bloody Sunday was a drive against criminality,” Mr Cortez said. “This is what we want to highlight: that in one day more than 52 search warrants were issued by a court.”
Mr Cortez said the warrants included those for Mr Manny Asuncion as well as Ms Lemita’s daughter Ana Marie Evangelista and her husband Ariel Evangelista.
The lawyer pointed out that what was supposed to be a campaign to go after syndicates became a witch hunt against activists.
For human rights alliance Karapatan’s secretary-general Cristina Palabay, this new complaint against Duterte at the UN body would “complement” the ICC investigation “in terms of looking at the situation in the Philippines”.
“We have no other choice but to continue to fight for justice,” Ms Palabay said. “Since President Marcos still does not want to cooperate with the (ICC) until now, it is in our hands to continue the call for justice.”
Ms Palabay noted that human rights violations were also filed before the UN body during the time of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Asked of the legal remedies to compel the government to adhere to the UN body’s resolution, Mr Cortez said the NUPL is studying whether a case could be filed in a regional trial court to get a ruling that orders government officials to enforce the findings.
The UN body is expected to come up with a resolution on the complaints within the next six months, he said.
Meanwhile, other families of political dissenters and activists killed under the Duterte administration have issued a collective plea to the House quad committee to expand its inquiry to include not only drug-related deaths but also killings in the guise of the government’s anti-insurgency war.
Around a dozen family members of rights advocates who died at the hands of police during Mr Duterte’s tenure wrote on yellow writing-pad paper to express their grief and rage over the injustice they continue to suffer. - THE PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
