Friday, June 15, 2007 Grecil died from rebel fires: Army By Ben O. Tesiorna
THE controversy surrounding the death of a nine-year-old girl, who was killed in crossfire between the military and the New People's Army (NPA), is still far from over, as the Philippine Army presents new evidence showing that Grecil Buya was killed by bullets coming from the rebels.
Brigadier General Carlos Holganza of the Army's 1001st Brigade said this at the Armed Forces of the Philippines-Philippine National Police (AFP-PNP) Press Corps-Southern Mindanao forum at the Task Force Davao headquarters Thursday.
Holganza said the investigation conducted by the Scene of the Crime Operatives (Soco) showed that the trajectory of the bullet that killed Grecil, from below the right ear to the upper left temple, showed that the bullet came from a lower ground.
In photos of the encounter area shown by Holganza before the media Thursday, he said the soldiers were positioned on higher grounds while the rebels were the ones positioned at the lower ground.
He said when the firefight started, the rebels started scampering towards a much lower ground and started firing towards the soldiers and at the house were Grecil was staying.
Holganza said marks of bullets in the area also indicate that most of the fires came from the area where the rebels retreated.
"The house itself had so many hits coming from the NPA side. There is a big possibility that the bullet that hit Grecil came from the NPA themselves," Holganza said.
He said the child was killed the moment the bullet hit her head, thus making it impossible for her to move her head to a different position.
Holganza said the child was even seen playing around with an amazon before the start of the firefight indicating that the rebels are frequent visitors in the area.
He said the sad part of this episode is that when the shooting started, the NPA rebels ran for their lives totally disregarding the safety of Grecil.
"To make matters worse, once they had made it to safer ground they rained the area with bullets, unmindful of the fact that they knew they had left behind a girl there. It was their insensitivity, their incompetence and their gross negligence that led to the death of the child," Holganza said.
The general said his soldiers were completely unaware that Grecil was caught in the crossfire as the child was allegedly covered by a slab from the soldiers' viewpoint.
Holganza said had they known the child was there they would have prioritized the child's safety over their mission to neutralize the enemies.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Southern Mindanao has already cleared the military of allegations that it murdered Grecil of New Bataan, Compostela Valley, on March 30, 2007.
In a May 21 decision signed by CHR regional director Alberto B. Sipaco Jr., the commission said Grecil was killed in the crossfire, that the encounter was legitimate, and that there was no evidence that the soldiers violated the rights of Grecil, whom it called a noncombatant.
Grecil, the decision said, "was caught in the crossfire," which it said was legitimate in that the soldiers and the guerrillas accidentally ran into each other in Grecil's neighborhood in New Bataan.
The commission also disputed the claim by the military that Grecil was an NPA combatant, who held a rifle and fired at the soldiers. This claim, it said, "cannot be taken as gospel truth in the face of evidence to the contrary."
Grecil's parents, Gregorio Galacio and Virginia Buya, earlier filed the murder complaint before the CHR against the soldiers from the 67th Infantry Battalion led by 2nd Lieutenant Francis John Gabawa.
Asked if they would be filing charges against the NPA in light of the new evidences they have, Holganza said they are seriously thinking about it.
He also challenged the militant groups to face them and present the evidences they have against the Army and see whose evidences have the greatest weight.
