Press Release
February 7, 2007

CONTINUED PROBE OF EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS USELESS
UNLESS MELO PANEL IS CLOTHED WITH ENOUGH POWERS

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos directive to the Melo Commission to continue its probe into the extra-judicial killings of political activists and journalists will be an exercise in futility unless its investigative powers are strengthened and its composition is modified to include members who are capable of conducting credible and independent inquiry.

Pimentel noted the continuing reluctance and refusal of witnesses and relatives of victims of the political and media killings to come forward and testify before the Commission due to the perception that it is not clothed with sufficient authority to conduct a fair and impartial investigation.

He also questioned the Arroyo governments invitation to other countries, particularly those from Europe, to participate in the investigation when the credibility of the Melo Commission remains under a cloud of doubt.

Pimentel urged the President to assure witnesses or resource persons of immunity to witnesses to encourage them to give truthful testimonies; and to extend full protection to the witnesses to allay their fears of reprisals from parties that may be hurt by their testimonies.

As long as the Melo Commission is not clothed with these powers, the impression that it is a paper tiger or a toothless investigative body will not be erased. And you cannot blame the witnesses and relatives of the victims of salvagings, as well as militant leftists organizations, for shying away from the investigation, he said.

He also challenged the President to heed the suggestion of human rights groups and the Amnesty International to appoint to the Commission people who have the track record in investigating human rights violations, such as those recommended by the militant cause-oriented organizations which have lost many of its members to the extra-judicial executions.

Unless the powers of the Melo Commission are expanded to enable it to fulfill its objectives, the minority leader said it would be better to entrust the investigation of the extra-judicial killings to the Commission on Human Rights, an independent constitutional body mandated and legally equipped to undertake this function.

Pimentel said it significant to note that Malacañang officials have admitted that the report of the Melo Commission on its four-month investigation of extra-judicial killings is incomplete and one-sided because it focuses only on the testimonies of military and police generals who appeared before the fact-finding panel but does not present the side or version of the witnesses, relatives of victims of the assassinations and leaders of the militant leftist organizations.

Pimentel also said it is ludicrous for the President to order the Melo Commission to continue the investigation of extra-judicial killings when it has not even bothered to make public the report that was recently submitted by Commission members led by retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo.

The report of the Melo Commission should not be kept a secret because it is a public document that the government has the obligation to release and the Filipino people are entitled to know. The refusal to release the report is a breach of the principle of transparency and the Freedom of Information Act, he said.

Pimentel said that since Malacañang itself has trumpeted that the Melo Commission is an independent fact-finding body, then it should stop restraining the Commission from releasing its own investigative report.

Why are they afraid of revealing the complete findings and recommendations of the Melo Commission? Is it because these are incriminating to some untouchable generals and they are afraid of displeasing the generals who may be held responsible for the extra-judicial killings under the principle of command responsibility? he said.

Pimentel decried that the actuations of the Arroyo government in this regard tend to lend credence to accusations that it is trying to cover up the truth instead of finding out the real perpetrators behind the extra-judicial killings and having them prosecuted and punished.

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