4Ps Party-list Rep. Marcelino "Nonoy" Libanan (Contributed photo)

House Minority Leader 4Ps Party-list Rep. Marcelino "Nonoy" Libanan is prodding President Marcos to create an independent fact-finding panel to investigate the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) linked to the previous Duterte administration’s controversial war on drugs. 

“We urge the President to form a panel – similar to the Agrava Fact-Finding Board – that will probe the summary killings and identify all  individuals who may be held criminally liable,” Libanan said. 

“Just like the Agrava board, the proposed commission should be independent from the legislative and executive branches of government,” added the veteran lawmaker. 

Libanan said that such commission "should consist of distinguished individuals who are highly regarded for their fairness and impartiality, and who are not politically aligned". 

Libanan, a lawyer by profession, served as chairman of the House Committee on Justice when he represented Eastern Samar’s lone congressional district. 

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin earlier stated that the Marcos administration “places the highest importance on the fair dispensation of justice and on the universal observance of rule of law” in the ongoing investigations into the summary execution of drug suspects. 

Reports said that over 30,000 were slain during former president Rodrigo Duterte's aggressive anti-narcotics campaign from 2016 to 2022.

The vaunted quad-committee (quad-comm) in the House of Representatives is currently looking into allegations that Duterte had employed a cash reward-driven campaign wherein police officers were encourage to kill drug suspects. 

The five-member Agrava Fact-Finding Board investigated the Aug. 21, 1983 assassination of former Senatpr Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. at the then-Manila International Airport. 

The board was chaired by the country’s first woman judge, retired appellate court Justice Corazon Agrava, alongside lawyer Luciano Salazar, businessman Dante Santos, educator Amado Dizon, and labor leader Ernesto Herrera, who was later elected senator. 

Within 11 months, the board took testimonies from 194 witnesses at 146 public hearings, and examined more than 1,400 photographic exhibits. 

The board concluded that Aquino was killed by a military conspiracy led by then-Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Fabian Ver. 

In 1990, the Sandiganbayan sentenced 16 soldiers, including Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio, to double life imprisonment for the assassination of Aquino and fall guy Rolando Galman. Ver died in Thailand in 1998.