De Lima wants NBI to pursue probe on activist's kidnap

Manila, Philippines - If it wasn’t the military, then who could be behind the kidnapping and torture of Filipino-American activist Melissa Roxas?

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima wants the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to find an answer to this question after the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) cleared the military in Roxas’ abduction in La Paz, Tarlac in May 2009.

De Lima said she would adopt the recommendation of the CHR for the NBI to pursue further investigation to determine which group should be held liable for the incident.

She said she would read first the entire CHR report before issuing an order for the NBI to pursue the probe.

The Roxas abduction was among the cases left by De Lima when she gave up the CHR chairmanship in July 2010 to head the Department of Justice.

“What I know is that before I left the commission there were certain findings already before. There was a team which was dispatched for confidential mission. And I think this CHR report was the result of that investigation,” she said.

“There is no showing or proof that the military was involved… But there is also no categorical finding as to who did it. There is insinuation or indication that it could be the NPA (New People’s Army) but there’s no categorical proof, that’s why the CHR wants the NBI to pursue the investigation,” she added.

The CHR, in its Feb. 14 resolution, said there was “insufficient evidence” to support Roxas’ allegation that military personnel were the ones who held her and subjected her to physical and mental torture in a house in Tarlac in May 2009.

In the same resolution, the CHR said it “has received information that indicates the possibility that members of the NPA committed the kidnapping and other human rights violations on Roxas.”

The military welcomed the CHR finding on Roxas’ abduction, while the Communist Party of the Philippines slammed it.