The Philippine
National Police and the Office of the Solicitor General had been
opposing the release of documents related to the more than 20,000
drug related deaths. But last April, voting unanimously, the Supreme
Court ordered the two agencies to submit the documents being demanded
by families of the victims.
The OSG and PNP
finally submitted documents but the Center for International Law
said they were ‘rubbish’.
Centerlaw, which
represents families of the victims of the drug war in 28 barangays in
San Andres Bukid filed a motion today to cite the OSG and PNP in
contempt of court disclosing that the OSG and PNP have defied the
Supreme Court three times on the latter’s order to release the
documents with respect to the total of 20,322 drug-related deaths
which the government itself claimed as accomplishment for the period
from July 1, 2016, to November 27, 2017.
Here are some
excerpts from the motion filed by Centerlaw:
The OSG and PNP
defy again the Supreme Court by submitting irrelevant non-drug
related case files
1. For the third
time, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the Philippine
National Police (PNP) defy the Supreme Court.
2. On 17 May
2019, the OSG and PNP furnished the petitioners 289 compact discs
(CDs/DVDs) in what they represented to be their full compliance with
the repeated orders of the Supreme Court for the government to give
Petitioners the required documents on 20,322 drug-related deaths.
3. When an
examination of an ample sampling of the files contained in the
CDs/DVDs was made, it became clear that an overwhelming number of the
death incidents submitted by the OSG and PNP are non-drug related
cases.
4. Out of 1,792
death files that have been inspected by the Petitioners so far:
consisting of 801 “solved” cases and 991 “unsolved” cases as
classified by police authorities, the following are the glaring
findings:
a. 90.01% of the
solved cases submitted are not drug-related, and;
b. 55.80% of the
unsolved cases submitted are not drug-related.
5. In other
words, only 9.99% of the solved cases are “possibly drug-related”
and only 44.20% of the unsolved cases are “possibly drug-related”
deaths.
a. Cases which
are tagged as “possibly drug-related” are those which implicate
the deceased victim as a possible drug user or pusher, a surrenderee,
or part of a drug watchlist.
b. Cases which
are tagged as “not drug related” are those which do not indicate
any relation of the deceased victim to drugs. These also refer to
cases where the PNP itself has labelled their folders as “non-drug
related (NDR).”
6. The cases
which are not drug-related include incidents of stabbing, mauling,
hacking, shooting, and other incidents involving private affairs
among citizens.
a. To illustrate,
one of the cases involve one Espiridian Baynos Tabunal. This case
relates to a “love triangle” wherein the suspect was the live-in
partner who got jealous of the deceased-victim.
b. On the other
hand, the death of a certain Ireneo Papillera was caused by a
misunderstanding over a videoke song.
c. Equally
noteworthy is the case of Edgar Roperos, who was killed merely
because he disturbed the suspect in his sleep.
d. Lastly, two
minors: Hamudi and Alhudri Anali were killed in a mortal shelling
incident.
Printouts of the
relevant files of the cases of Espiridian Baynos Tabunal, Ireneo
Papillera, Edgar Roperos, and the Analis are hereby attached as
ANNEXES B, C, D, and E respectively.
7. The sampling
inspected by the Petitioners so far consists of one hundred seven
(107) CDs/DVDs containing documents from Ilocos Region (Region I),
Central Luzon (Region III), Southwestern Tagalog Region (Region
IV-B), Bicol (Region V), Central Visayas (Region VII), Eastern
Visayas (Region VIII), Zamboanga Peninsula (IX), the National Capital
Region (NCR), and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(BARMM).
8. The inventory
of the “SOLVED/CLEARED” and “UNSOLVED” cases per Region
inspected by Petitioners and the details thereon is hereby attached
as ANNEX A.
9. What the OSG
and PNP virtually want is for the Supreme Court and the Petitioners
to utterly waste valuable time and resources examining case files
which are totally irrelevant and, in fact, absolutely rubbish insofar
as the instant cases are concerned.
10. For the
Petitioners to be made to labor through a full examination of the
complete files submitted by the OSG and PNP – even after a
considerable sampling of the same has yielded the above-discussed
results – will virtually allow the OSG and PNP to succeed in their
underhanded machinations.
A soft copy of
the motion is attached for reference
- Sr. Ma. Juanila Dano vs the PNP Manifestation and Motion
- Dano vs PNP manifestation and Motion Final 18 September 2019
(Disclosure: CenterLaw President Joel Butuyan is a trustee of VERA Files.)
