IBP to DOJ prosecutors: File charges vs cops in ‘nanlaban’ cases

An officer of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) has called on lawyers and human rights advocates to keep up the pressure on two crucial legal points in the government’s bloody war on drugs: state prosecutors should file homicide cases over the nearly 4,000 “nanlaban” encounters and the police must release the case records on these incidents.

In the “Rise, Resist, Unite against Tokhang and Tyranny” forum organized last week by the human rights lawyers’ coalition “Manlaban sa EJK” at the University of the Philippines College of Law, IBP executive vice president Domingo Cayosa explained that under criminal law, Department of Justice prosecutors, as a matter of procedure, must file homicide charges against policemen claiming self-defense in operations where the drug suspects were killed because they supposedly fought back (nanlaban).

By the government’s own count, there have already been 3,987 cases of “drug personalities who died in antidrug operations” from July 2016 to January 2018.

But Cayosa pointed out: “How many homicide cases have been filed by the fiscals? None.”

Prima facie case

“Isn’t that malfeasance? Isn’t it graft and corruption if you don’t do your duty? Isn’t it that under criminal law, you file the case because somebody died and somebody owned up to the killing? Isn’t there already a prima facie case there?” he asked the audience composed mostly of law students.

Earlier in the forum, Kristina Conti of the National Union of People’s Lawyers reiterated that nanlaban cases should be tried in court instead of authorities taking the word of the policemen concerned.

“We always ask the Department of Justice and our fiscals, please file the homicide cases. They’re not complicated. Just do your job,” Cayosa said.

Asked later on if the IBP has plans to hold accountable prosecutors who fail to do their duties, Cayosa explained that the usual “legal explanation” given was the lack of private complainants against the police.

At the same time, prosecutors face an obstacle due to the refusal of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to release case records on the nanlaban encounters, he said. As a result, the IBP has continued to ask PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa “to allow access [to these] records….”

Judicial intervention

Free Legal Assistance Group chair and “Manlaban sa EJK” convenor Jose Manuel Diokno likewise said the “nanlaban” cases “deserve judicial intervention” such as the PNP being ordered to submit firearms used in the killings to the National Bureau of Investigation for forensic examination.

The PNP Internal Affairs Service or National Police Commission should also submit a monthly report to the courts on the status of its investigation into these cases, he added.

He pushed for the strengthening of the justice system, saying the real problems that triggered the drug war were crime and corruption which, in turn, were largely triggered by the “failure of the justice system.”