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Friday, March 09, 2007
Party-list lawmaker, communist leader urged to give up
MANILA -- Police on Thursday asked a party-list congressman and his co-accused in the alleged murder in Leyte of scores of suspected deep penetration agents of the military to surrender.
Police spokesman Samuel Pagdilao said they have received copies of the arrest warrant issued for Bayan Muna party-list Representative Satur Ocampo, whose group is seeking reelection in the party-list elections.
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In response to the surrender call, Ocampo advised police authorities not to waste their money on efforts to arrest him since he will not flee the country and will surface to face all the charges leveled against him.
Leyte Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Ephrem Abando issued the arrest warrant against Ocampo and National Democratic Front (NDF) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison for charge of multiple murders pending before his sala.
The case stemmed from last year's exhumation of close to 100 bodies of civilians and New People's Army (NPA) rebels who were reportedly victims of a purge by the communist leadership that suspected them of working as deep penetration agents of the military.
Of the skeletal remains exhumed by elements of the Army's 8th Infantry Division (ID) in coordination with local officials of Inopacan town in Leyte, 15 have been identified and their families have filed the murder charges before the courts.
Aside from Sison and Ocampo, 52 other communist personalities are listed in the warrant of arrest.
"In the best interest of justice and human rights, Representative Ocampo and the other accused personalities should turn themselves in to authorities because flight is an indication of guilt and will only aggravate their case," Pagdilao said.
He said "our justice system assures the accused personalities of their day in court, unlike their alleged victims who were summarily butchered without the benefit of a fair trial."
Romeo Capulong, Ocampo's lawyer, said the congressman, who is seeking reelection as a party-list representative, would surrender "in a matter of days" and that he is just "making some adjustments at the moment."
Ocampo, in a press statement, denied that he was involved in the communist purge in Leyte in 1984 and said the charges filed against him were part of the Arroyo government's plot to prevent him from getting elected into office in the May 14 elections.
"I was arrested on January 14, 1976 and was under military custody until May 5, 1985. This renders impossible the claim that I was in Leyte in 1984 to supervise the purported purge," said Ocampo.
As to the claim that he went back to Leyte in 1991, "that is also impossible because I was arrested anew in 1989 and was detained until 1992. I cannot be in detention and at the same time appear from thin air in Leyte."
It was not immediately clear how the police would serve the warrant on Sison, who is on self-exile in The Netherlands since the late 1980s.
For former communist rebels led military troops and police investigators to the mass grave. The four said they have first-hand knowledge of the mass murder, which was allegedly carried out on orders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) central committee then headed by Sison and Ocampo. (VR/DBP/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Davao. (March 9, 2007 issue)
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