DOJ sets charges vs NPA over 1,500 attacks

FILE PHOTO BY ERWIN MASCARIÑAS

An interagency body headed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) has recommended the filing of charges for violation of the international humanitarian law against communist rebels behind about 1,500 incidents, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said on Friday.

Guevarra said the attacks attributed to the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, were among those submitted by the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the special committee created through Administrative Order No. 35.

Signed in 2012 by then President Benigno Aquino III, the DOJ-led committee was tasked to investigate extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other human rights abuses.

Guevarra said cases were previously brought against the NPA rebels, but most of these were filed as “common crimes” like murder, kidnapping and arson. —Marlon Ramos