The police allegedly duped an elderly mother into signing documents that said the New People?s Army killed Macel and George Vigo, the two journalists murdered in June in Kidapawan. Church and human-rights groups, in a fact-finding mission, assailed the authorities for the alleged cover-up and for Oplan Bantay Laya.
By Germelina A. Lacorte
davaotoday.com
KIDAPAWAN CITY ? Norma Alave is 60 years old and has a failing eyesight. The day after her daughter Maricel ?Macel? Vigo was murdered along with her husband George, on June 19, then Philippine National Police chief Arturo Lomibao came to this city to personally hand over a 10,000-peso check supposedly from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The following day, the police summoned her to the police station and asked her to sign some documents. She was told that the papers were meant to establish that she was Macel?s mother and that George was her son-in-law. ?So I signed the documents,? Alave said, even though she couldn?t read what was written on them.
It was only later when her son Gregorio Alave, 29, found out that the documents his mother had signed included a paragraph that identified the Vigo couple?s killer as someone named Dionisio Madanguit. ?I retracted the statement because I never knew that man,? Mrs. Alave said.
This incident, according to human-rights and church groups that recently conducted a fact-finding mission in this city to investigate the killings, tended to suggest a whitewash and was meant to fit the authorities? oft-repeated line that the communist New People?s Army was behind the murder of the Vigos.
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Was Mayor Rodrigo Duterte?s unprecedented appearance at the City Council motivated by a serious desire to eradicate the drug problem? If so, why didn?t he or the PDEA file cases instead in court against the alleged drug dealers? Was it because of desperation and exasperation — that no matter what Duterte does, illegal drugs continue to proliferate? Or was it meant to spook councilors into giving him more ?peace and order? money in next year?s budget? Davao Today managing editor Cheryll D. Fiel tries to answer these questions.
