CHR slams slow, confusing probe of Fr. Tentorio’s murder

KIDAPAWAN CITY, North Cotabato—A crime without a criminal.

This was how a top official of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) described the murder of Italian priest Fausto “Pops” Tentorio in criticizing the lack of progress in the case’s investigation.

“It is a big slap to our justice system,” said Jose Manuel Mamauag, commissioner of CHR. “There was a crime but there’s no criminal,” he said.

Mamauag, during the CHR inquiry here last week, asked North Cotabato Rep. Nancy Catamco to work with the commission to get to the bottom of the case.

“If the culture of impunity is broken, extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations will come to an end,” he added.

Human rights lawyer Carlos Isagani Zarate said he suspects that the investigation is being manipulated to derail it.

Zarate cited the testimony of witness Dominador Damlayon, who claimed he was afraid he could no longer go home if he did not sign an affidavit implicating brothers Jimmy and Robert Ato, Jose Sultan Sampulna and Dima Maligugan Sampluna as primary suspects in the killing of Tentorio.

Damlayon also said he was given P500 after signing a sworn statement at the National Bureau of Investigation office in Cagayan de Oro City in February last year.

Lawyer Gregorio Andolana, one of the legal counsels of the Diocese of Kidapawan, said Damlayon seemed to have been manipulated in signing a prepared affidavit.

But Angelito Magno, acting NBI director for Northern Mindanao, said Damlayon admitted to NBI officials that he personally saw the Atos and the Sampulnas inside the compound during the killing.

During the CHR inquiry, however, Damlayon admitted that he was “not in the compound when the shooting happened.”

Jimmy Ato also said he was forced to sign a document that he has not read.

Before the panel led by CHR Chair Loretta Anne Rosales, Ato said: “I cannot forget when they brought me to an isolated place and told me to cooperate with them by implicating the Sampulnas, William Buenaflor and a certain chief. I told them I don’t know these men but a certain Loloy showed to me a picture of the Sampulnas.”

“I was threatened. They were going to kill me if I did not cooperate with them,” he added.

Magno denied allegations that Damlayon and Ato were forced or were under threat when they signed their sworn statements.

Zarate said these were clear manifestations that somebody had manipulated the investigation. Carlo Agamon, Inquirer Mindanao