A NATIONAL Police task force tasked to investigate cases of unexplained killings has filed 83 cases, arrested of 28 suspects, affected the surrender of 14 others and had four assailants convicted, a report to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) revealed.

Quoting a report from Task Force Usig, Danilo Valero, asistant secretary for the interior and public order, said that of the total number of 141 cases verified, 113 involved killings of political activists and 28 work-related killings of journalists.

Valero said that out of the 113 cases involving political activists, 60 (53 percent) were filed, four (3.5 percent) are under investigation, 48 (42.5 percent) are considered cold cases as there had been no development or progress on the investigation for more than a year and one case (1 percent) was dropped and considered closed.

Of the 60 cases, he said 35 were filed in court, in which one case was settled amicably, 27 on trial and seven dismissed.

A total of 12 cases are pending at the prosecutor’s office and 13 were provisionally dismissed, according to the Task Force Usig report that was submitted by Director Jefferson Soriano, who also heads the National Police Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management (DIDM).

A total of 29 incidents of killings of political activists involved members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) while  12 involved military  and paramilitary personnel as suspects—five of these cases involved civilians with alleged links to the military, and one is still under investigation.

In the cases of killed media practitioners, out of the 28 work-related cases, 23 were filed in court, four were considered cold cases and one remains under investigation.

Out of the 23 cases filed, Soriano reported that one was perpetrated by the CPP-NPA; two involved two military personnel (one arrested and one surrendered) with two civilians (one arrested and one surrendered) as suspects; and three incidents involved three police personnel (all detained) with one civilian who voluntarily surrendered.

Two more cases involved two government officials who voluntarily surrendered with one civilian (one arrested); and 15 cases involved only civilians as suspects, wherein 13 were arrested and eight surrendered, Soriano said.

A total of 248 suspects have been listed in the killings of political activists and media personnel, of whom 28 were arrested and 14 surrendered, he added.

Earlier, Valero said Task Force Usig had noted a significant decline in cases of unexplained killings by 83 percent from 2006 to the following year.

In 2007 he said the task force recorded only seven incidents of unexplained killings, of which none included military or police personnel. Compared with 41 incidents in the previous year, this represents an 83- percent reduction in these cases, he added.

Ermita hit for ‘stretching’ SC ruling

SENATORS on Monday slammed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s “erroneous” interpretation that a recent Supreme Court (SC) ruling effectively allowed Cabinet officials to evade Senate summons to testify in inquiries into alleged anomalies in the Arroyo administration until the publication of Senate rules covering investigations in aid of legislation.

INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc., the country’s largest port operator, has bagged the 25-year contract to manage and operate the state-owned Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) in Misamis Oriental, besting two other bidders.

THE National Police and the Armed Forces are discussing a proposal for the police organization to take over the anti-insurgency operations in some areas in the country.

A NATIONAL Police task force tasked to investigate cases of unexplained killings has filed 83 cases, arrested of 28 suspects, affected the surrender of 14 others and had four assailants convicted, a report to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) revealed.

A RECENT report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that while the Philippines has a low brain drain rate, Filipinos who reached college remain attracted in working or settling over long periods in OECD’s 29 member-countries.

ORGAN transplants in the Philippines, including those scheduled under the medical-tourism program, have been temporarily held in abeyance by the Department of Health (DOH) pending approval of a new policy being drafted that will establish a board to set the guidelines on organ transplantation in the country.

ALARMED by what he described as the “alarming rate” of incestuous relationship in the families of overseas contract workers, a legislator has filed a bill moved to criminalize incestuous sexual relations between family members, imposing stiffer penalty to guilty parties.

LABOR Day is just a month away and Sen. Mar Roxas wants to be able to present a labor law exempting minimum-wage earners from income taxes so that he will push for it as soon as Congress resumes in April.