Karapatan: Kin of dead in Calabarzon raids victims twice over with late release of remains
MANILA, Philippines — Rights watchdog Karapatan slammed the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Army for allegedly keeping families of those killed in the "Bloody Sunday" raids from claiming their remains.
They said barring access to the remains is torture of the bereaved.
On Wednesday night, alternative news network AlterMidya reported that police were keeping the families of four people killed in the operation in Rizal, a province in Calabarzon, from claiming the remains of Melvin Dasigao, Makmak Bacasno, and Randy and Puro Delacruz.
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said that this is not the first time that law enforcers had blocked families from claiming the remains of their loved ones.
In the case of slain peace consultant Randall Echanis, police took away his cadaver from the funeral parlor his wife chose. Groups also claimed police sped up the funeral procession of Baby River, daughter of political prisoner Reina Mae Nasino, on the way to the cemetery in 2020.
“This is clearly a modus operandi to torture their families—but we won’t let them get away with it this time,” Palabay said.
“The appalling inhumanity of the State does not end with their gruesome, extrajudicial killings: they continue to deny the remains of their victims from death to funeral while putting their families to the torturous experience and misery of having to beg on their knees for the remains of their own loved ones.”
The group said police and military have no right to refuse to hand over the remains of the victims to their families, who were also padlocked inside the funeral parlor’s premises for hours until noon Thursday.
“They are being victimized twice over, and we can’t even imagine the horror of suffering this cold-blooded injustice against them and their families,” Palabay also said.
Locked in the funeral home
Karapatan said the families of the victims and their counsels from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers arrived at the Antipolo Memorial Homes on Wednesday to process the release of the bodies.
The group said they were able to process the documents and payment for the release, but “the funeral house along with police officials have refused to release the remains and threatened to arrest the families, the paralegals, and the people assisting them when they asserted their right to claim the bodies.”
The funeral homes’ gates were padlocked at around 7 p.m., supposedly under the owner’s orders, preventing anyone from going in and out of the premises. Karapatan also reported that a fire truck and two military trucks, along with police patrol vehicles and motorcycles arrived outside the funeral home at around 1 a.m. on Thursday.
ABS-CBN News tweeted that a member of the Commission on Human Rights’ monitoring team arrived at the funeral home in the morning to broker a dialogue between police and NUPL lawyers demanding the release of the families locked inside the gates.
At around 11 a.m., NUPL lawyers were allowed to enter the funeral homes and minutes later, the families stepped outside the gates.
Palabay asked whether the decision to lockdown the funeral parlor was the owner’s decision or the police’s. “We are calling on the owner of the Antipolo Memorial Homes to tell the truth and to stop this cruelty by allowing the families to rightfully claim the remains of their loved ones,” she added.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said they are determining whether the Calabarzon raids fall under department’s Administrative Order 35 Task Force, which probes political killings, or whether the National Bureau of Investigation will make a separate probe into the incident. — Kristine Joy Patag
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