• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The head of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) sub-regional office in Negros Occidental expressed his dismay on what he calls the “uncooperative” attitude of the police in their probe on the encounter that claimed the lives of six suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental.
Provincial CHR officer-in-charge Vincent Parra yesterday said he was denied of a copy of the police blotter although it is a public record.
They are not the subject of the investigation, but the encounter, he added.
Parra said the Kabankalan police referred him to the Philippine Army for the CHR investigations of the incident.
Last month, six NPA rebels died in an encounter with 47th Infantry Battalion soldiers in Barangay Tabugon, Kabankalan City.
Parra said he was able to get the identities of the slain rebels from a funeral parlor.
In his initial talks with Lt. Col. J Jay Javines, civil-military operations chief the 3rd Infantry Division, Parra, who asked a copy of the Army’s after-battle report, said they were assured of their full cooperation in the probe.
Of the six persons who died, initial investigations showed that one of them, Ruben Gaitan, turned out to be a resident of Barangay Camansi, Kabankalan City.
The parents and siblings of Gaitan maintained that Ruben, an employee of the SONEDCO sugar central and working as a part-time tricycle driver, is not affiliated with the NPA contrary to military claims.
Parra raised the possibility that Gaitan may have been hired by those killed in the gunbattle.
Among the killed individuals, Parra said the names of Bobby Pedro and Mario Fajardo Mullon were identified by the Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict as among the NPA personalities being urged to surrender.
Maybe they were placed under surveillance prior to the incident, he added. | GB
