Attorney General Menardo Guevarra is awaiting President Marcos’ opinion on creating an independent truth commission to “complement and accelerate” the government’s ongoing investigation into the previous government’s drug war-related killings.
Guevarra said he presented Malacanang with a proposal to create the commission last year, but has yet to receive a response.
“I submitted a memo on that proposal last year, but I assume the president is still considering it. He maybe he believes that what we are doing is enough. So maybe that’s one of the reasons why this proposal hasn’t gotten full traction yet,” he told “The Chiefs” on CignalTV’s One News on Tuesday night.
Under the Attorney General’s Office proposal, the commission would work separately and independently of the investigation currently being conducted by the Justice Department-led task force.
Guevarra believes that the creation of this independent body is a viable solution to speed up the investigation of drug war murders, citing previous commissions he had worked on, such as the Davide Commission that investigated the December coup. 1989 and the Feliciano Commission for the Oakwood Rebellion, both of which resulted in “cases due to their independent investigations.”
“All of these had results and all of these resulted in cases because of their independent investigations. That is a way to supplement the regular investigation that our law enforcement agencies carry out,” he said.
“But that’s not to say that what we’re doing right now is failing…we’re not saying that the existing research right now is insufficient. What we mean is that we can speed things up,” he added.
Category: Philippines
