THE investigation of 29 from the 350 cases of extra judicial killings (EJKs) and torture have already been delisted by the Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) due to lack of witnesses or interest among complainants.
This was confirmed by Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra to the media after the 16th meeting of the IAC, which is composed of officials from the DOJ and other agencies, last May 12.
He explained that the delisting of the 29 EJK and torture cases were from Regions 4 and 8.
Majority of these cases reached the investigation stage by the Philippine National Police (PNP), Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the National Prosecution Service (NPS). while the review of the still unresolved Administrative Order (AO) 35 cases in other regions is still ongoing.
Meanwhile, Guevarra said that the revised operational guidelines was also agreed upon during the IAC meeting to make work faster even smaller working groups were created to fast track the investigation and prosecution of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations such as the use of child combatants, land mines, and others.
There were 263 IHL cases supported by documents that were already referred to the working group, mostly coming from Regions 4-A, 4-B, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
The IAC was created on 2012 through AO 35 created by President Noynoy Aquino as a response to investigate cases of killings of activists and media personnel.