The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has appealed to the House Committee on Human Rights to defer its scheduled hearing on the rescue operations for minor Indigenous People’s children who were held against their will in Cebu City, citing that the subject is a “live case”, among others.
Lawyer Marlon Bosantog, the NTF-ELCAC spokesperson on legal affairs and IP concerns, in addressing the committee under Quezon City Rep. Jesus Suntay also manifested that any hearing on the matter must be a joint congressional inquiry with the committee on indigenous peoples’ concern and the committee on children’s welfare.The hearing was supposed to be held Wednesday (May 26).
“Your Honors, the subject issue at hand is a live case., a suit pending. A live case we mean a case now under the rigors and crucible of due process. While admittedly the case of Kidnapping, Serious illegal Detention, Child Abuse, and Human Trafficking against respondents Chad Booc and six others docketed under NPS Docket. NO. XI-03-INQ-21B 00076 before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Tagum City, Department of Justice was dismissed, the period for the filing of a motion for reconsideration by the State is yet to lapse or expire,” Bosantog’s statement read.
The copy was released to the media because he was not allowed to finish due to time constraints.
The lawyer, also an official of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), likewise informed the House panel that the order of dismissal is not final and executory.
“A simple reading of the order of the prosecutor admits existence of the elements constituting the crimes as charged yet the venue for the filing of the criminal complaints is improper, hence, it was dismissed primarily on the issue of lack of jurisdiction. And lack of jurisdiction, we understand, does not vest any authority on the prosecutor to resolve the case, even granted that the crimes were committed. The prosecutor infact made the observation that the criminal complaints be filed appropriately before Cebu City or in Davao City,” Bosantog said.
“The case, the lis pendens or a suit pending if you will, is now under our official mechanism for dispute resolution,” he added.
The NTF-ELCAC also strongly rebuked House Resolution No 1590 entitled “Resolution Urging the House of Representatives through the Committee on Human Rights, to condemn and investigate, the raid and mass arrests against Lumad evacuees seeking sanctuary in Talamban Cebu by elements of police and the military”, claiming that it assumes a “prematurity that has neither basis in fact nor in law, in simple conscience of man or due process of law.”
“This resolution, if nothing else, aims to create a prejudgment, bias, and prejudice against the State without the facts undergoing scrutiny of procedural due process. The Honorable Secretary (National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr.) wishes to invoke due courtesy due to a co-ordinate branch of the government. Respect for a coordinate branch reinforced by the traditional courtesy that marks inter-departmental relations, as the Supreme Court defines it. And arguing further in this line, the resolution, unashamed, aims to diminish and erode the constitutional principle of interdepartmental courtesy, where a co-equal branch of government operates under the power vested to it by the same Constitution. Without proof and establishment of wrongdoing, we stand today on the precipice of outright condemnation,” Bosantog emphasized.
Any condemnation by the House panel or any of its members, he further stressed, will be “an appalling condemnation of the victims.”
“The condemnation you are being coaxed or inveigled today to issue is an appalling condemnation of the victims. A condemnation that seeks to purify the acts of the criminal even before the pronouncement of the judicial conclusions. Even today, what message do we send to the victims? To the parents who were part of the rescue operations? These cases, your honors, involve kidnapping, serious illegal detention, child abuse, and human trafficking. Each act is a grave and serious offense. Each despicable, and abhorrent. These crimes are being imputed to the respondents as authors thereof. The State is duty bound to investigate and bring into our system of accountability the actors of these crimes,” the NTF-ELCAC official added.
Bosantog also pointed out the fact that the resolution was designed to condemn and investigate in a manner like “putting the cart before the horse.”
“Your Honors, the title of the resolution alone admits the attempt to hide a wrongdoing. The phrase lumad evacuees seeking sanctuary also meant minor children as young as 13 years old trafficked without the consent of their parents and harbored and confiscated in areas living together in a cramped environment with adults not their parents or kin,” he further said.
“To declare also there is a mass arrest is outright falsehood, almost if not all rescued children were reunited with their parents and were brought back to their communities or ancestral domains, and not all arrested individuals are members of the indigenous cultural communities. These are uncontestable facts, yet there is an attempt to obviate the truth to create and peddle a desirable falsehood,” he also said.