MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Justice dismissed the murder complaints filed against 17 police officers over the killing of labor leader Manny Asuncion, one of the activists slain in the Bloody Sunday raids in 2021.
The DOJ panel of prosecutors, in a resolution released only on Tuesday night, dismissed the complaint for murder under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code against the cops for “insufficiency of evidence.”
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“We lament the demise of Emmanuel Asuncion. However, complainant and the evidence she submitted failed to discharge the obligation to prove the existence of a crime and identify the perpetrators thereof. In the absence of proof, there could be no probable cause to charge the respondents,” the resolution said.
Asuncion is the coordinator of progressive group’s BAYAN in Cavite, and his wife, Liezel, filed the murder complaint.
He was one of the activists and community leaders killed in simultaneous raids early March morning in 2021 by police to serve search warrants in Calabrzon provinces. Tagged as the Bloody Sunday raids, the incident sparked public outrage and prompted the creation of a special investigation team under a DOJ-led task force following Administrative Order 35.
Cops all claimed the subjects of the search warrants had fired on them first — a claim refuted and questioned by the families and rights groups of the victims.
In the case of Asuncion, the police had claimed there was a “chase” from his house in Rosario, Cavite to the office of Workers’ Assistance Center in Dasmariñas, Cavite.
Kilusang Mayo Uno chairperson Elmer Labog and Defend Southern Tagalog’s Charmane Maranan refuted this. He said Asuncion and his wife had been staying at the office since Saturday night.
They said Asuncion’s house was searched at 4 a.m., before he was supposedly chased to Dasmariñas and eventually killed at around 5 a.m. Labog said this was a “blatant lie.”
DOJ resolution
Liezel, who filed the complaint, said the police officers did not knock at the door but more or less six cops “kicked and smashed” it, while she and her husband were sleeping. She also belied that Manny fired the first gunshot.
But the prosecutors, citing the elements of murder held in jurisprudence, said they find that “the circumstances presented by complainant in support of its accusation against the respondents are insufficient to establish probable cause for the crime of murder as the complainant Asuncion (Liezel) failed to adequately substantiate her allegations against all the respondents.”
Prosecutors also said Liezel did not identify six of the respondents, and did not detail their respective participation. She was also not able to see who shot her husband, they added.
“Based from the foregoing circumstances, it is clear that there was no eyewitness to the purported killing of Emmanuel Asuncion,” they said.
“Likewise, there was also nothing that directly incriminates the respondents in killing him,” the prosecutors said, adding that the complaint against the cops only have “allegations and suppositions” of the killing.
The Special Investigation Team report also only presented circumstantial evidence that are “broken and incomplete.”
The prosecutors said that, on the contrary, “there are evidence showing that the implementation of the search warrant was a legitimate operation and in the process thereof, Emmanuel Asuncion resisted from the police authorities.”