House Independent Bloc leader and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez has urged Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to file criminal charges against killers of the 44 members of the Special Action Force as soon as possible and without fanfare.
“Justice must be served with dispatch and it would not look good if this would dragged (filing of charges) for so long,” Romualdez said in the light of de Lima’s announcement last week that government would start filing criminal raps versus SAF killers today.
Romualdez, a lawyer and president of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), explained that the filing of formal charges is needed to help convince lawmakers into deliberating the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in Congress.
“The filing of charges will be the first step to attain justice and would help convince lawmakers to continue deliberating the BBL. We are all for peace, but we should ensure that justice is served and whatever we passed here is constitutional and legal,” Romualdez explained, referring to the peace pact between the MILF and the government signed in March 2014.
Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz of Abakada party list, a member of Romualdez’s the Bloc, said justice should be served to the ‘Fallen 44’ and their kin.
“Government must do its best to serve justice to the SAF 44 who were killed during an encounter with the Moro rebels last January 25,” de la Cruz said.
In a related development, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chairman of the 75-man House ad hoc committee on the BBL, said Congress is expecting de Lima to charge the Moro Islamic Liberation Front involved in the killing of 44 SAF members with multiple murder and violations of the International Humanitarian law.
“We are waiting for them to file criminal cases…murder [cases]. Based on the Senate report, the MILF surrounded, assaulted then robbed the SAF. For the BOI, it said the MILF violated the International Humanitarian Law because the five of the SAF [who were killed] were finished off even if they are already incapacitated,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez expressed belief that the MILF “have to be charged,” saying what happened in Mamasapano “cannot be a misencounter.”
“A misencounter can only happen in one hour. Our SAF policemen were being killed [from early morning] until 2 pm,” said Rodriguez.
As a result of the probe conducted by the BOI, the Senate, MILF and the International Monitoring Team and the accounts of the surviving SAF members, de Lima said the DoJ was able to get an eyewitness.
Rodriguez also said MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal’s use of alias may compromise the validity of seven documents signed between the government and MILF.
Rodriguez urged the DoJ to determine if Iqbal is criminally liable for using his alias in signing the document.