DAVAO CITY – The House Committee on Human Rights has raised questions on the efficiency of the Commission on Human Rights to handle human rights cases, its consultation here has revealed.
Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate said that the works of the CHR is now “mechanical” citing the case of the 8-year old child, Roque Antivo.
Reports last October 2013 state that the family’s complaint against Lt. Col. Jerry Borjal, commanding officer of the Army’s 71st Infantry Battalion and Lt. Felipe Llorca for allegedly killing Roque Antivo was dismissed when the Compostela Valley Provincial Prosecutor Graciano Arafol, Jr sent a resolution to the family and support groups.
Roque Antivo was killed on the evening of April 3, 2013 in Barangay Anitapan, Mabini. It was reported that soldiers of 71st IB allegedly “fired indiscriminately at his location.”
Together with Roque was with his elder brother, Earl John, 12, and uncle Jeffrey Hernan, 13 who both were wounded.
Zarate said that “this time, the CHR just goes to the area of incident, verify the human rights violation, and then compensate [the victim’s families].”
Officer-in-charge of CHR XI, Atty. Irene Joy Montero said that “[CHR] can no longer do anything on the case” since it was already dismissed and it is beyond their jurisdiction.
Montero said that they are just “recommendatory bodies,” where she means that they can not prosecute the perpetrators.
“Kapag nakita namin na may human rights violation (When we see that there is a human rights violation), we recommend it to the appropriate agency. On Antivo’s case, ni-recommend namin sa prosecutor’s office (we recommended it to the prosecutor’s office),” Montero said.
Chairman of the House Committee Guillermo Romarate Jr, asked Montero what the CHR is doing while case is ongoing. Montero answered they are monitoring it.
“On our procedural guidelines, if ever the case is already filed, we will monitor the case, we just monitor the case,” she said admitting that they knew the case is dismissed by the prosecutor even though the complainants filed for reconsideration.
The Provincial Prosecutor dropped Antivo’s case due to lack of evidence.
In dismay, Romarate told Montero that they should have done something for the case not to be dismissed.
“Isipin mo na we allowed a child to be killed at age 8. Ngayon pinayagan din natin ang kaso na sana dun natin makuha ang protection of the rights of a very young human being, ” he said.
(We allowed an 8-year-old child to be killed. Now we allowed his case to (turn out like that) when we could have pursued it for the protection of the rights of children.)
“You should have gone to the Department of Justice (DOJ), they would have listened to you,” he said.
“It is inconceivable that a child would die without a perpetrator,” Romarate argued.
Assuming that CHR has been monitoring the case, Romarate asked Montero if they have also knew the reasons of dismissal of the case and if they have determined who were the perpetrators.
Montero did not answer the committee chair’s question but instead presented the CHR’s findings on the case, where she said that the CHR finds out that the rights of the victims are violated.
“It was not clear if the bullet came from the military or there might be a possibility that it came from the other party. We have not touched it conclusively where we did not discuss it in the resolution,” Montero said.
The CHR’s resolution on Antivo’s case is to give financial assistance to the family of the victims, P10,000 is given to Antivo’s family, P5,000 and P4,000 to the other two, respectively.
ACT Teachers’ Representative Antonio Tinio reacted on the resolution made by the commission saying that there is a problem in giving monetary assistance.
Tinio said that “the CHR just consider their job to declare that there is a human rights violation without going (deeper) and without (determining) who is responsible.”
He added that the resolution of the CHR, to give financial aid to the victim’s families, is just strengthening the culture of impunity in the country. (davaotoday.com)
