A local radio station also aired text messages expressing �tacit� approval of the summary killings. This prompted a village chief identified with Duterte�s political opponent Rep. Prospero Nograles to dare the Duterte camp to conduct a survey on the Davao people�s real sentiment on the summary killings.
Later, the probe, itself, was muddled with charges of partisanship.
Nograles, perceived to be up against the Dutertes in the coming elections, was accused of having a hand in gathering evidence on the reported summary killings.
Jonathan Balo, a detainee from Panabo City Jail, had filed a complaint against Nograles on the diggings. Balo claimed he was �forcibly� taken out of jail on July 6, without due court orders, and forced to provide �corroborative information that the human bones dug out from the Maa site belonged to victims of summary executions.�
Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Leila De Lima listens as Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte responds to her questions during the March 30, 2009 probe on the Davao summary killings.(davaotoday.com photo)
Nograles denied any involvement in the incident, branding Balo’s claims as “stupid news.” De Lima, also named respondent in the complaint, was indignant.
“We are doing this (the public inquiry) because we feel it is the right thing to do. No one can accuse us of any motivation other than doing our job,” De Lima told the press during the recent probe.
Duterte denied accusing De Lima of political agenda. Instead, he pointed out that “some politicians,” are taking advantage of the inquiry to gain leverage over him.
In April, during the second inquiry, village chiefs told the CHR they only �heard about the DDS from media reports.� They attributed the killings in their area to �gang wars,� also the mayor’s way of explaining the summary killings in the city.
Duterte had told the inquiry that the killings were either murder or homicide arising from vengeance, exacted by gang members who are �out to cut each other�s throats.�
In September, De Lima heard police station commanders testified that each incident in the series of killings in August and the first few days of September was a separate case.
Of the 26 cases presented by the police, De Lima said only seven victims had “prior police records� of petty crimes and �killed by motorcyle-riding men.�
De Lima said the police station commanders questioned during the September inquiry were “quite evasive,” and “seemed to veer away from the idea that the killings were the handiwork of an organized group.”
After the CHR probe began in March, there was a slowdown in the killings until August, when newspapers reported 27 deaths in a span of one month.
CHR assumed that the new wave of killings must have been brought about by �purging from among the ranks of the DDS.�
But the mayor said he is in no way involved because he has already resigned as the deputized head of the Davao City police a day after the start of the CHR probe in March.
�Noon, nand�yan ako pero may patayan. Ngayon wala ako meron pa rin patayan. (When I was there, there were killings. Now that I�m out of the picture, there are still killings),� the mayor said during the city-sponsored Gikan sa Masa Para sa Masa weekly television program. �Worse, most of the victims now are innocent civilians.�
But De Lima said the public inquiry is not the end of the probe.
�We have executive sessions, dialogues and confidential interviews on the side. So far, we were able to collect four sworn statements, from allegedly former DDS hitmen,� De Lima said. Two of the testimonies formed as basis of the excavation at a quarry site in July, she added.
Whether De Lima will ever get to the bottom of the Davao killings is a question being asked of the ongoing probe.
Even if the CHR may not be able to prove any of the things it sets out to do, the city mayor could not evade “command responsibility.”
If the CHR can prove that the killings in the city are EJKs, by which De Lima meant, there is a pattern to these killings, and that they are �state-perpetrated,� then, the mayor should better be ready. The CHR may not have prosecutorial powers and quasi-judicial functions but it can certainly pinpoint responsibility for the filing of administrative or criminal charges. (Cheryll D. Fiel/davaotoday.com)
rodrigo duterte
