De Lima dares DOJ to disclose breakdown of ‘verified’ EJK cases

Senator Leila de Lima
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

Sen. Leila de Lima on Monday challenged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to make public the breakdown of the alleged 219 “verified” cases of extrajudicial killings (EJKs).

De Lima issued the challenge after Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II denied her earlier allegation that the latter issued a directive not to file cases against officers enforcing the drug war.

The lady senator said this information prompted her to file a complaint against Aguirre last July 13, before the Office of the Ombudsman for violation of Article 208 of the Revised Penal Code or “negligence in prosecution and toleration of criminal offenses.”

But contrary to the senator’s allegation, Aguirre claimed that the DOJ has “219 verified cases of EJKs.”

“We should ask for a breakdown of the 219 ‘verified’ cases of EJKs disclosed by the DOJ (via a July 21 item of Rappler) by way of a retort to my claim, based on reliable sources that the SOJ issued an internal directive not to file cases against law enforcement officers enforcing the war on drugs,” De Lima said in a statement.

The senator also asked Aguirre to clarify the data the DOJ released on March 27.

“Pakilinaw po, Mr. Aguirre, yung linabas nyong data. Ilan ba dyan yung mga EJKs ng mga small-time/poor drug pushers and users (Can you please clear it up Mr. Aguirre, the data you released. How many are cases of EJKs of small-time/poor drug pushers and users)?” she said.

“Mukhang nanloloko na naman kayo (Looks like your’e fooling anyone again). Stop misleading or fooling the people, please,” De Lima added in her statement.

De Lima pointed out that the alleged 219 cases of EJKs apparently referred to those cases covered by the Administrative Order No. 35 or the Inter-Agency Committee on Extra-Legal Killings, Enforced Disappearances, Torture and Other Grave Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of Persons established in 2012 during the time of then President Benigno Aquino III.

But she reminded Aguirre that AO 35 defined EJKs as “killings of militants or activists, members of progressive and cause-oriented groups and the like (e.g., union leaders, agrarian leaders, anti-mining advocates, etc).

“(M)ost, if not all, of which occurred before the Duterte administration, and not to the current species of EJKs targeting suspected drug offenders who are killed during police operations and by unknown vigilante killers, all in the name of the Duterte regime’s war on drugs,” said De Lima.

“I should know because I was the one who drafted the AO 35 (as then Justice secretary) and recommended the same to then President PNoy (Aquino) who signed and issued the same,” added the senator, who served as Justice Secretary during Aquino’s term. JPV