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A
NATIONAL Police task force has so far listed a total of
255 suspects in 141 verified incidents of unezplained
killings.
At least
27 have been arrested, 13 have surrendered and four
convicted by the trial courts, a report to the
Department of the Interior and Local Governments (DILG)
showed.
Director
Jefferson Soriano, Task Force Usig chief, said that of
the total number of 141 verified cases, 113 involved the
killings of political activists and 28 work-related
killings of journalists.
As of
end-March this year, out of the 113 cases involving
political activists, 62 (55 percent) were filed, four
(3.5 percent) are under investigation, 46 (40.7 percent)
are considered cold cases as there had been no
development or progress on the investigation for more
than a year, and one case (0.8 percent) was dropped and
closed, Valero said.
Of the
62 cases, 35 were filed in court, in which one case was
settled amicably, 27 are on trial and seven were
dismissed. A total of 13 cases are pending at the
prosecutor’s office and 14 were provisionally dismissed,
Soriano said.
A total
of 28 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 who
allegedly are linked 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 as there had been no development
or progress in the investigation for more than a year
and one remains under investigation.
Out of
the 23 cases filed, one was allegedly 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; three
incidents involved three policemen (all detained) with
one civilian who voluntarily surrendered; two cases
involved two government officials who voluntarily
surrendered with one civilian (one arrested) and 15
cases involved only civilians as suspects, wherein 10
were arrested and six surrendered, Soriano added.
Earlier,
Task Force Usig noted a significant decline in cases of
unexplained killings by 83 percent from 2006 to the
following year.
In 2007
the task force recorded only seven incidents of
unexplained killings, of which none involved military or
police personnel. Compared with 41 incidents in the
previous year, this represents an 83 percent reduction
in these cases. R. Acosta |
