Rep. Kiko Barzaga also facing raps over Forbes Park rally — CIDG

MANILA, Philippines—Cavite 4th District Rep. Kiko Barzaga is facing a criminal complaint over a rally he led outside Forbes Park in Makati City last Oct. 12, according to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

The CIDG earlier confirmed that it lodged a case before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office against Barzaga for inciting sedition over violence during the Sept. 21 anti-corruption rallies.

“Actually, we have another one. It’s also the one in Makati [City], Forbes [Park],” CIDG Director Maj. Gen. Robert Alexander Morico II said in a chance interview in Camp Crame on Thursday.

“I will not comment because it is already with the [National] Prosecution Service.”

“This is nothing personal. There was a crime committed. It was a violent one. There are police officers [who] were injured. There were government properties that were destroyed. That is the reason that we filed cases,” Morico added.

The CIDG, however, declined to specify Barzaga’s role in the alleged sedition in both the Sept. 21 and the Oct. 12 rallies, citing that the cases are already with the prosecutor’s office.

Morico previously announced that the CIDG had filed criminal cases before the Department of Justice against at least 97 individuals over the violence during the Sept. 21 rallies.

Asked whether Barzaga was among the 97 individuals initially sued, at the chance interview, Morico answered in the affirmative.

Commenting on the case against him, in a social media post on Wednesday, Barzaga said, “This will not stop us. This will only make our revolution stronger!”

READ: CIDG files raps vs Kiko Barzaga over Sept. 21 violence

The violence during the widespread Sept. 21 anti-corruption rallies erupted at the foot of Ayala Bridge and the Mendiola Peace Arch.

Police arrested over 200 individuals, and at least two were reportedly killed during the riots, prompting human rights groups to condemn law enforcers and allege that they failed to exercise “maximum tolerance.”

Meanwhile, police said there were no “untoward incidents” during the Oct. 12 rally at Forbes Park, which Barzaga led to call on President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to step down.

The protests stemmed from alleged corruption in flood control and other infrastructure projects. /gsg/abc