Verzosa: PNP to unearth ‘root causes’ of carnage

PHILIPPINE National Police (PNP) Chief Director General Jesus A. Verzosa has reiterated his proposal for the creation of an independent factfinding panel to probe the “root causes” of the November 23 Maguindanao massacre which killed 57 people happened.

“It’s a must. A fact-finding committee should be (formed) so that we will not be seeing only at the massacre incident itself but the underlying reasons why it... happened,” he said.

Verzosa’s proposal was echoed by Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim who believes that an independent team composed of representatives from the police, military, human rights experts and the private sector should be formed.

“This is the only way we can truly understand what went wrong and why did this carnage happened,” he said.

Verzosa earlier urged the private sector to initiate the creation of an independent team. “This is one of the important things we should look at. Because if we want to prevent another similar incident from happening in the future, we have to see the root causes of all these things,” he stressed.

Verzosa said the team should work closely with the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to help in the investigation on the mass murder, the biggest single massacre of journalists in recent history.

“The panel must be independent and insulated from political influence and coercion,” Verzosa said.

The PNP chief said the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Department of Justice, and the National Bureau of Investigation have been working so hard to resolve the case at once.

The massacre, allegedly perpetuated by the Ampatuans – a powerful clan in Maguindanao – shocked the international community, with the United Nations and the European Union condemning the horrific carnage and urging the Philippine government to give justice to the victims.

“We are conducting an overall investigation and actually we have put into custody a lot of police officers. We are also investigating the mention of different names of the Armed Forces. We have also put into custody several CVOs that are mentioned and we have now charged two CVOs [civilian volunteer organizations],” Verzosa said.