Inhibit self from torture probe, CHR chief urged

MANILA, Philippines - A party-list congressman urged Commission on Human Rights chief Leila de Lima yesterday to inhibit herself from her agency’s inquiry into allegations military men tortured Filipino-American activist Melissa Roxas last year.

Rep. Pastor Alcover of the rightwing group Alliance for National Advancement and Democracy said De Lima could not be expected to be impartial since she is related to Juliet de Lima, wife of Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

He claimed that Roxas is an activist allied with the CPP, which had become a legal organization with the repeal of the Anti-Subversion Law by the post-martial law Congress.

He accused the CHR chief of being biased for Roxas, who has formally complained before the commission that military personnel had abducted and tortured her in Tarlac.

Alcover told the Serye Café, news forum in Quezon City that if De Lima does not inhibit herself from the CHR inquiry, he would file an impeachment case against her with the House of Representatives.

But Albay Rep. Edcel Lag­man informed his House colleague that the CHR chief is not one of the impeachable officers mentioned in the Constitution.

He said Alcover would have to file his planned complaint elsewhere.

For his part, Rep. Jovito Palparan of Bantay, another rightwing group, urged the House human rights committee to look into the possibility that it was the New People’s Army and not the military that abducted and tortured Roxas.

Palparan, a retired major general called “The Butcher” by his critics, said it is possible that the NPA harassed her for leaving the communist movement.

Roxas has denied accusations that she was an NPA member.

Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III, human rights committee chairman, said he is willing to expand his panel’s inquiry as Palparan suggested there are assertions from Roxas that it was the NPA that kidnapped her.

“As of now, it is the complainant’s accusation that it was the military that abducted and kidnapped her. Her testimony is the evidence against the accused,” he said.

Alcover and Palparan are among more than 30 new party-list representatives that the Supreme Court recently added to the House membership.

They have taken the cudgels for the military in the Roxas torture case.

Since becoming congressmen, the two have been engaged in a word war with representatives of leftwing groups led by Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna.