Solon asks 2 House committees to probe Atimonan incident

MANILA, Philippines - House of Representatives Minority Leader Danilo Suarez has filed a resolution calling for a congressional investigation into the killing of 13 people in Atimonan, Quezon on January 6.

 

Suarez filed House Resolution 2987 urging at least two committees in the House of Representatives to investigate the killing of the 13 people, including suspected jueteng lord Vic Siman and a ranking police official.

 

Law enforcement agencies, including the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police, and the Commission on Human Rights are already conducting separate investigation on the incident.

 

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. had also said that "it is best to allow the said investigations to come to their appropriate conclusions."

 

"Let's give them the chance to do what they are doing," Belmonte said.

 

Expecting that any or some members could speak on the matter in plenary, Belmonte added that he would not preempt the collective action or decision of any House members on the possibility of separate congressional inquiries into the shooting incident.

 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has placed under the government’s Witness Protection Program two persons who claimed to have witnessed the killing Siman's group.

 

During a reenactment of the supposed shooting, the two witnesses told De Lima and NBI agents that the 13 people's were all raised when they were fired upon by the team of Senior Superintendent Hansel Marantan, who was leading the operation.

 

Marantan's group had earlier claimed that the group of Siman fired the first shots and that the operation was conducted based on intelligence information that a group of criminal suspects were passing Quezon province.

 

De Lima said that based on the accounts of the two witnesses, Siman and the others were killed "in cold blood."

 

The police's fact-finding team had also indicated that the firearms recovered from Siman's group could have been planted.