Rights group Karapatan pushes further probe on money, blood trail of EJKs during FPRRD admin

BAGUIO CITY (December 11, 2024) -- Human rights alliance Karapatan is pushing the Quad Committee of the House of Representatives “to expand the scope of its investigations to include the extrajudicial killings of political activists by Rodrigo Duterte’s death squads.”

The group’s secretary general Cristina Palabay reiterated to further question Police Captain Kenneth Paul Albotra, who was said to have boasted to former police colonel Royina Garma of his role in killing Tanauan, Batangas Mayor Antonio Halili in July 2018.   Albotra’s assignments from 2017 onwards indicate that he may have also been involved in the Sauron police operations that resulted in the killings of activists and farmers in Negros, Palabay cited.

Former Philippine National Police Chief Debold Sinas, who led Sauron operations when he assumed the post of police Region 7 chief in June 2018 to October 19, should also be summoned for questioning,” Palabay also pressed.  “Sinas should likewise be questioned on the successive police operations conducted by the NCR Police Office (NCRPO) when he headed it and when he was PNP chief, when activists were arbitrarily arrested and detained based on spurious search warrants and planted evidence.”

Testimonies, Palabay said, provided by resource persons in previous Quadcom hearings have anyway already revealed the names of police officers who were involved in the death squad killings of drug suspects and how such killings were incentivized through the use of the Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) of Duterte as well as local officials.

Police colonel Lito Patay should again answer questions from the Quadcom on his role in the Bloody Sunday killings of March 7, 2021, when he was CIDG chief in Region 4A, further added Palabay. 

“The blood and money trail of the same police elements ordered by Duterte to kill drug suspects lead to the extrajudicial killings of activists,” Palabay stressed, adding, aside from Sinas, Patay, even and even (former CIDG director, Major Gen.) Romeo Caramat, must be investigated”.