DOJ to reopen ‘cold’ cases of extrajudicial killings

(First of two parts) In the chronicles of human rights violations, Judge Ariston Rubio is listed as one of the first victims of extrajudicial killings under the administration of Gloria Arroyo. Almost a decade since he was slain in broad daylight by two unidentified gunmen on the Batac-Currimao road in Ilocos Norte on Oct. 31, 2001, Rubio’s murder remains unsolved. Like Rubio, United Methodist pastor Isaias Sta. Rosa was also a victim of extrajudicial killings (EJKs), the 21st church worker killed during the Arroyo administration. Taken from his home in Daraga, Albay by 10 hooded men in the evening of Aug. 3, 2006, Sta. Rosa was hogtied, beaten up and then dragged to a nearby creek where he was shot six times. His killers have never been punished. In both cases, years of investigation ended in a blank wall, with police and prosecutors giving up either for lack of witnesses or insufficiency of evidence. The Department of Justice, however, is set to wipe the dust off forgotten cases like these and reopen them, following a directive from President Benigno Aquino III to resolve and put closure to cases of human rights violations during Arroyo’s term. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima recently signed Department Order 848 creating a task force that will reopen cold case files on EJKs, torture and enforced disappearances. “Those that didn’t even reach the investigation stage, are still under investigation by the police, by the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), other investigating agencies…we will address that issue," said Justice Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III who was designated head of the task force. “I have sent several memoranda to our prosecutors in the field all over the country where there are pending preliminary investigations and pending court hearing involving human rights cases," he added. ‘A human rights disaster’ The Rubio case is among an estimated 32 percent of 305 EJK cases audited last year that remain unsolved by the police while Sta. Rosa’s is among the 16 percent that have been dismissed by government prosecutors. Lawyer Al Parreño, who conducted the audit entitled Report on the Philippine Extrajudicial Killings (2001 to August 2010), said such cases never prospered mainly because the assailants were never identified. This happened in the Rubio case, resulting in the police not filing a case because there was no one to charge. The audit also noted that for cases that reached the prosecutor but are dismissed, as in the Sta. Rosa case, 39 percent are due to the inability of investigators to gather or present enough proof against the suspects. Parreño’s study covered 305 reported EJKs, but that figure does not reflect the real picture. “The real number of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines escapes exact determination," he said. “Regardless however of the true body count, the mere fact that there are so many extrajudicial killings is by itself a cause for alarm. While we consider ours a more human rights-friendly country, it is very clear we have a human rights disaster in our midst." The study points out that in terms of profession or affiliation, a significant number of EJK victims were either members or officers of leftist groups, elected government officials, journalists, peasant leaders, judges and members of religious groups. Rubio’s case At the time of his death, Rubio, an executive judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 17 in Batac, was handling controversial electoral and criminal cases. He became the first of several lawyers and judges in Northern Luzon to fall victim to EJKs. “This gives an implication that judges are targeted in extrajudicial killings because of their unfavorable decisions against influential and armed individuals," the Parreño study said. His unsolved killing also highlights the fact that the slow wheels of justice in the country do not spare even those who dispense it like Rubio. Shortly before he was killed, police said the judge was warned of an impending threat in Currimao town after he denied the motion of defeated mayoral candidate Cirilo Quilala for a recount of election returns in Currimao in 2001. Quilala lost to then mayor Rosario C. Go, now vice mayor of Currimao. In neighboring Paoay town, Rubio was accused of favoring Bobby Clemente in an electoral protest the latter had brought against Nenuca Evangelista, who was proclaimed mayor by the Commission on Elections. The Clementes and Evangelistas in Paoay are longtime political rivals. Clemente is now mayor of Paoay. The late judge had also issued several arrest warrants to suspected criminals. Rubio was driving his red Mercedez car on his way to the courthouse when two men wearing crash helmets and camouflage uniforms on board a TMX motorcycle fired at the back of the vehicle as it slowed down to pass a road undergoing repair at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 31, 2001. One of the suspects approached the car, shot Rubio several times and escaped southward. The judge was rushed to the nearby Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center but was pronounced dead on arrival. Sometime in 2005, a rumor went around Rubio’s hometown Badoc that a group of guns-for-hire led by a certain Hadji Palafox was behind the killing. Never proved, the rumor could not be considered as evidence, police said. To this day, police said they are hunting down Palafox and his group for multiple murder charges. They are known as “hired killers" who have been operating in Ilocos Norte for a long time, according to police. A task force on anti-private armed groups formed by Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos has tagged Palafox as one of Ilocos Norte’s most wanted criminals. His picture, along with those of other most wanted criminals, is posted at every police outpost. He has so far evaded arrest. Sta. Rosa case By the time Sta. Rosa was killed, the human rights organization Karapatan in Bicol had recorded 117 victims of extrajudicial killings, most of them members of progressive organizations, in what had been become then an “environment of impunity." Sta. Rosa, then 47, was ministering to both the spiritual and economic needs of the poor in Daraga. Aside from being a United Methodist pastor, he was also as a member of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas chapter in the province and executive director of the nongovernment Farmers’ Assistance for Rural Management Education and Rehabilitation Inc. On Aug. 3, 2006, at 7:30 p.m., 10 hooded men in fatigue and combat boots barged into the Sta. Rosa home, hogtied and beat him up, and forced him to admit that he was the person they were looking for. The hooded men then dragged him to a nearby creek and shot him six times. To the residents’ surprise, it was not only Sta. Rosa’s body they found near the creek, but that of a hooded man as well. He was later identified as Cpl. Lordger Pastrana, a member of the 9th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army’s Infantry Division who the Sta. Rosa family narrated was one of the 10 men who took the pastor. A .45-cal. pistol, cell phone, driver’s license and a “mission order" were recovered from Pastrana’s body. The gun, cartridge case and the slug were submitted to the PNP Crime Laboratory. The gun remains in its custody. The Daraga Municipal Police Office initially declared Sta. Rosa’s killing a simple case of “robbery in band" and “robbery with homicide." The first case, which implicated Maj. Ernest Marc Rosal and Capt. Arnaldo Manjares as perpetrators, was filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group before the Albay Provincial Prosecutor’s Office on May 25, 2007. This was dismissed on June 8, 2007. The CIDG filed another case on Oct. 8, 2007 but this was endorsed two days later to the Regional State Prosecutor’s Office, which also heads the Region V Task Force on Human Rights Violations and Extrajudicial Killings. PO3 Carlo Buenavente, the case officer, said Rosal was assigned to Camp Weene Matillana in Pili, Camarines Sur and was charged after investigators found he had signed the “mission order" dated July 11, 2006 found on Pastrana’s body. Police investigated Manjares after the pistol recovered from the corporal was traced to him. Manjares, however, declared in his counter-affidavit that he had lost the gun months before the incident. He sought the return of the weapon, a request the prosecutor’s office denied. But the regional Task Force on Human Rights Violations and Extrajudicial Killings, to whichthe case was endorsed, would again dismiss the case, citing the lack of convincing reasons to continue with the investigation. Prosecutors said they are open to reviving Sta. Rosa’s case if a motion to do so is filed, but they also cited a logistical problem: Their filing system, especially of archived cases, is in disarray, no thanks to the typhoons and other calamities that have swept Albay. At the time VERA Files visited the prosecutor’s office, the folder on Sta. Rosa’s case could not be located right away. Relatives move on In both the Rubio and Sta. Rosa cases, the victims’ relatives have dropped out of sight. Tragic though Rubio’s death was, his family said they have moved on and would rather put matters into God’s hands. They continue to pray that “people responsible for the death of a good man will pay for their sins whoever and wherever they are." Sta. Rosa’s family, meanwhile, has yet to be heard from. One account says the Sta. Rosas transferred to a relocation site in Barangay Anislag, Daraga, about 20 kilometers from their old home. But they could not be found among the relocatees, and neighbors say they have gone to stay with relatives. – VERA Files (To be concluded) (VERA Files is put out by senior journalists taking a deeper look at current issue. VERA is Latin for true.)