Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares said that the next administration must "once and for all" address the impunity of the police and the military by ensuring that those who committed crimes are punished.
‘’Without justice and accountability, extra judicial killings (EJKs) will continue,” he said in a statement on Friday, March 26.
Colmenares also urged the creation of an Independent Tribunal that would investigate and hold to account those who committed EJKs of drug suspects and activists during President Duterte's administration.
“There must be an independent tribunal, similar to the Truth Commission created in South Africa to investigate the atrocities during the Apartheid regime. This tribunal must be clothed with powers to investigate these human rights violations under President Duterte and ensure that they are punished for their crimes,” he proposed.
Colmenares is one of the counsels in the complaint filed by families of drug suspects against the government’s war on drugs.
Meanwhile, House Deputy Minority leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate joined Colmenares in welcoming the Commission on Human Rights (CHR)-intiated "intensive investigation" on the thousands of deaths in President Duterte’s drug war.
"We strongly support the CHR's move. There must be justice for the victims who were defenseless and yet mercilessly killed in President Duterte's bloody campaign against drugs,” Zarate said.
"There will be no peace without justice in our country,’’ he added.
“We ask the CHR to release its report soonest so that we can submit this together with the supplemental pleading that we will file with the International Criminal Court (ICC) this April. We hope to file this last supplemental pleading and evidence before the ICC decides in the criminal case against President Duterte. ” Colmenares said.