Thursday, March 13, 2003
Prober leaves for Iraq, stalls inquiry v. NBI
By Lorenzo P. Niñal
THE looming war in Iraq and the conflict in Pikit in Mindanao have stalled the House investigation on the Dec. 13 operation bungled by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Cebu.
Rep. Etta Rosales (Party-list, Akbayan), chairperson of the investigating committee on civil, political and human rights, was scheduled yesterday to leave for Iraq as part of a delegation of Southeast Asian parliamentarians who will look into abuses against the Iraqi people.
The “peace mission” will focus on possible human rights abuses committed against women and children there.
Similar missions in Mindanao and other war-torn areas in the country are also lined up for Rosales after she arrives from Iraq next week.
As a result, the NBI case will have to wait till the first week of April, Rosales stated in a radio dyLA interview yesterday.
Five Plantation Bay Hotel employees were wounded after NBI agents mistook their van for that of a drug suspect, and riddled this with bullets last Dec. 13.
More urgent
But Rosales said Iraq and Pikit, and similar conflicts in other parts of the country, have taken on more urgency than the NBI incident.
She clarified, though, that this doesn’t lessen the importance of the NBI case, which she said has national consequences as far as the country’s law enforcement is concerned.
The executive session scheduled last Monday also did not push through, as tension in Iraq heightened and alleged human rights abuse incidents in Pikit, North Cotabato mounted.
It was not also clear if subpoenas have been sent to confidential agents to require them to appear at the next session, whether it be executive session or public hearing.
Apparently, there has been no recent discussion among the committee members on the investigation.
Interviewed by Sun.Star last Tuesday, Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu City, south) said he hasn’t talked yet with Rosales and other members of the committee on how to proceed with the next session.
Executive session
When the session resumes, it will be an executive session, so that the confidential agents will feel free to reveal everything without pressure from the public and the media, Rosales said.
But this may have yet to be agreed on by the committee. Cuenco earlier said the next hearing, with the confidential agents present, will have to be done in public, like the two previous sessions in Cebu.
The committee has vowed that the investigation won’t end the way other House inquiries did, without results.
Cuenco said he won’t allow the inquiry to close without getting the confidential agents to appear before the committee.
(March 13, 2003 issue)
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