Group to lawyers: Explain fake claimant scam

MANILA, Philippines--Members of human rights group Selda this morning trooped to the office of lawyer Rod Domingo in Makati City, urging him to explain the fake claimants who were recently collared by authorities.

Around 20 Selda members picketed in front of the LPL Center along L. Leviste St., Salcedo Village, Makati asking for an explanation to the existence of bogus human rights victims.

They said that while many of claimants have been delisted despite being victims of the Martial Law years under the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr., fake ones managed to get a masterlist of the claimants.

"This is exactly we want to prevent. Attorneys (Robert) Swift and Domingo should have allowed Selda to have that list but only these lawyers have access to it. We could have averted such incidents because Selda helped majority of the victims," Selda secretary general Angie Ipong said.

Ipong also called for a impartial investigation into the incident where eight people using fake documents to claim the compensation meant for victim of human rights violations during the Marcos regime.

"Selda and the martial law victims have repeatedly sought Domingo and Swift, the latter being the count-appointed counsel, for meetings for transparent discussions on court actions and on the distribution of the initial compensation, but they repeatedly brushed aside these efforts," Ipong said.

She noted that more than 2,000 legitimate claimants to the P43,000 compensation were stricken off the list by the two lawyers from the original list of 9,539 victims as validated by the US Federal District Court of Hawaii.

"They were denied justice because of the arbitrariness of these counsels and now they are doubly victimized because the compensation due them is distributed to alleged claimants," she added.

Selda said it has already filed an appeal before the US court regarding the case.

The group is also pushing a Congressional inquiry to probe those who have been arbitrarily delisted by the human rights lawyers.(Dennis Carcamo)