• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has started a motu proprio (on its own) investigation on the series of armed clashes in Barangay Pinapugasan, Escalante City, Negros Occidental.
CHR provincial head Vincent Parra said on Tuesday (Feb. 27) that their probe focuses on the death of Jose Caramihan, who was claimed by his family as a farmer, and Emaren Pastidio, the lone female fatality.
Parra said that they will determine if the rights of Pastidio had been violated under the Magna Carta for Women.
Caramihan and Pastidio were among the three fatalities in the first encounter between soldiers of 79th Infantry Battalion and remnants of the dismantled New People’s Army (NPA) Northern Negros Front (NNF) on Feb. 21.
Three soldiers, among them a junior officer, and a Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit member were injured.
At least six high-powered firearms and assorted explosives, with an improvised landmine, were recovered by 79IB soldiers from the first encounter site.
The bodies of the three slain rebels were retrieved from the encounter site on Feb. 24.
The cadaver of Caramihan was buried by his family on the same day.
Pastidio and Christopher Ebarle, the other rebel fatality, were both minors, when they were recruited by the NPA.
Lt. Col. J-Jay Javines, public affairs chief of 3rd Infantry Division, said Pastidio was released following her captivity in 2018. She was then 16 years old.
Ebarle, alias Michael, and his three siblings were supposed to be rescued by the 79IB and the Department of Social Welfare Development three years ago but they later joined their parents, who are NNF members, Javines said. | GB
