CHR to investigate mass grave

CHR chairperson Loretta Ann P. Rosales. MATIKAS SANTOS/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Human Rights says it will investigate a report by the military that it exhumed a mass grave of at least 30 suspected victims of a communist rebel purge in the 1980s.

CHR chairwoman Etta Rosales said Monday that her office would look into the mass grave. But she said it’s too early to say whether those found in the grave in northern Quezon province were victims of a rebel purge.

Army spokesman Major Harold Cabunoc said Sunday that soldiers unearthed at least 30 skeletal remains of people believed to have been slain by communist rebels as suspected military spies in the 1980s.

He said the remains were exhumed from a shallow grave discovered by a farmer in San Francisco town.