The Center for International Law filed today with the Supreme Court at 11:30 am a Petition for the issuance of the Writ of Amparo on behalf of the families of victims of a tokhang operation carried out by the Quezon City Police District at Group 9, Area B, Payatas, Quezon City in August last year.
The petition against the tokhang-- the very first since the Duterte Administration launched a sustained drug war in July last year --- asks the Supreme Court to protect the families from police harassment and intimidation, and to suspend tokhang operations in the community and in all areas under the jurisdiction of QCPD Station 6 while the case is being heard.
The Petition asks the Court to direct the Philippine National Police to produce and permit the inspection and copying or photographing of intelligence and surveillance reports, police blotters, coordination, video and all other official and unofficial documents and material pertaining to the police operations conducted on 21 August 2016 against the victims in relation to their being suspected drug personalities under OPLAN TOKHANG, and to other operations or activities subsequent to such incident in relation to the Petitioners.
Excerpts from our Petition:
HINDI KAMI PAPAHULI NG BUHAY!, the victims allegedly shouted upon seeing the approaching lawmen, before they unleashed a hail of bullets on the police officers.
From thereon, the official narrative could not move beyond sheer incongruity. The official police reports claim it was a chance encounter during a tokhang operation, but in interviews with media, they said they caught the victims holding a drug session; in thus making conflicting accounts of their deadly action, they effectively rendered irrelevant the two categories of carnage the prize-winning American journalist James Fenton came up with in his recent reportage of several episodes of the on-going drug war in the country.
To begin with, the assailants Police Senior Inspector EMIL GARCIA Police Officer 3 Allan Formilleza, Police Officer 1 James Aggarao and Police Officer 1 Melchor Navisaga are members of a police community precinct that has no operational jurisdiction in the area where the killings happened.
And in a comical attempt to hide this fact, the police officers fabricated death certificates and police reports for the young men they mercilessly gunned down, to show that the carnage happened in another barangay that properly belonged to their police stations area of operation.
And perhaps, that this Petition is being filed at all before this Honorable Court is only because a fifth victim, a 28-year old vegetable vendor named Efren Morillo, put up such a fight against death that he somehow improbably escaped its cold fangs, and mustered the courage to speak about what happened to him and his friends on August 21, 2016 at Group 9, Area B, Payatas, Quezon City.
Five months after the killings, the policemen involved continue to sow terror at Group 9, Area B, Payatas, Quezon City, to intimidate and harass into a paralyzed silence an entire community that had witnessed their crime. Composed mainly of informal workers, garbage collectors and scavengers, the powerless and poverty-stricken community is vulnerable to fear and pressure coming from men armed with guns and given the mantle of protection by no less than the government in their rampage in the name of the war on drugs.
https://www.facebook.com/centerlaw.m...41699392799240
The petition against the tokhang-- the very first since the Duterte Administration launched a sustained drug war in July last year --- asks the Supreme Court to protect the families from police harassment and intimidation, and to suspend tokhang operations in the community and in all areas under the jurisdiction of QCPD Station 6 while the case is being heard.
The Petition asks the Court to direct the Philippine National Police to produce and permit the inspection and copying or photographing of intelligence and surveillance reports, police blotters, coordination, video and all other official and unofficial documents and material pertaining to the police operations conducted on 21 August 2016 against the victims in relation to their being suspected drug personalities under OPLAN TOKHANG, and to other operations or activities subsequent to such incident in relation to the Petitioners.
Excerpts from our Petition:
HINDI KAMI PAPAHULI NG BUHAY!, the victims allegedly shouted upon seeing the approaching lawmen, before they unleashed a hail of bullets on the police officers.
From thereon, the official narrative could not move beyond sheer incongruity. The official police reports claim it was a chance encounter during a tokhang operation, but in interviews with media, they said they caught the victims holding a drug session; in thus making conflicting accounts of their deadly action, they effectively rendered irrelevant the two categories of carnage the prize-winning American journalist James Fenton came up with in his recent reportage of several episodes of the on-going drug war in the country.
To begin with, the assailants Police Senior Inspector EMIL GARCIA Police Officer 3 Allan Formilleza, Police Officer 1 James Aggarao and Police Officer 1 Melchor Navisaga are members of a police community precinct that has no operational jurisdiction in the area where the killings happened.
And in a comical attempt to hide this fact, the police officers fabricated death certificates and police reports for the young men they mercilessly gunned down, to show that the carnage happened in another barangay that properly belonged to their police stations area of operation.
And perhaps, that this Petition is being filed at all before this Honorable Court is only because a fifth victim, a 28-year old vegetable vendor named Efren Morillo, put up such a fight against death that he somehow improbably escaped its cold fangs, and mustered the courage to speak about what happened to him and his friends on August 21, 2016 at Group 9, Area B, Payatas, Quezon City.
Five months after the killings, the policemen involved continue to sow terror at Group 9, Area B, Payatas, Quezon City, to intimidate and harass into a paralyzed silence an entire community that had witnessed their crime. Composed mainly of informal workers, garbage collectors and scavengers, the powerless and poverty-stricken community is vulnerable to fear and pressure coming from men armed with guns and given the mantle of protection by no less than the government in their rampage in the name of the war on drugs.
https://www.facebook.com/centerlaw.m...41699392799240