The government’s inter-agency committee on extra-judicial killings (EJKs) has finished its investigation on the deaths of nine activists during the joint police-military operations in Southern Tagalog provinces last March 7.
Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra, chairman of the committee, on Monday, Nov. 1, said “the AO 35 committee (Inter-Agency Committee on Extra-Legal Killings, Enforced Disappearances, Torture and Other Grave Violations of the Right of Life, Liberty and Security of Persons) is ready with its first report and we’re just going over it.”
The joint police-military operations were conducted to ferret out suspected communist rebels in Cavite, Laguna, Rizal and Batangas provinces.
In the service of the search warrants, however, nine persons died and several others were injured and arrested. The incident was then dubbed as “Bloody Sunday” by several human rights groups.
The incident was one of those bloody encounters that prompted the Supreme Court (SC) to hasten the issuance of the rules on the mandated use of body-worn cameras or alternative video and audio recording devices by law enforcers in the service of arrest or search warrants.
Under the rules, pieces of evidence obtained by law enforcers who did not use body-worn cameras or alternative devices are “inadmissible for the prosecution of the offense for which the search warrant was applied.”
The rules also provide that persons who are subjects of search or arrest warrants should be informed that the enforcement of the warrants are being recorded from the start of the operation until terminated.
In case death results in the implementation of the search warrant, “an incident report detailing the implementation of the search, the reasons why such death occurred, the result of related inquest proceedings, if any— including possibly those against the officer or officers causing the death together with other relevant documents — shall likewise be submitted” to the court which issued the warrant.
Trial courts can only issue arrest or search warrants within their territorial jurisdiction. The rules had revoked authority to executive judges of some trial courts, like those in Manila and Quezon City, to issue warrants that can be served anywhere in the country.
The inter-agency committee on EJKs, known as AO35 committee, is composed of the Department of Justice, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of National Defense (DND), Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).