Gov’t panel rues death of ailing detainee

The government peace panel on Thursday sympathized with the family of detained peasant leader Bernabe Ocasla who died of an illness on Monday, and assured the National Democratic Front of the Philippines that the administration was already working to free other political prisoners.

The 66-year-old Ocasla was one of the political prisoners being considered for release on humanitarian grounds, but he suffered a heart attack before he could gain his freedom.

He was in a coma for three days before he died at the Jose Reyes Hospital in Manila.

“It was a sad development. We offer our sympathies to the family of Mr. Ocasla,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, government peace panel chair, said in a statement.

“We would have wanted to allow his freedom before he died,” Bello added.  —LEILA SALAVERRIA