Evidence-based investigation

an intelligence asset of the Philippine Army.

Mansueto said they will include the four individuals tagged by NDF in their list to be invited for questioning, in connection to the Sagay incident.

In the meantime, the Philippine National Police filed multiple murder charges against suspects, Rene Manlangit and Rogelio Arquillo, who are organizers of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, and seven John Does.

Fernandez claimed that its accusations are based on “exhaustive investigations” of the NPA Roselyn Pelle Command.

Really? Did it include admissibility of hearsay, authentication, relevance, privilege, witnesses, opinions, expert testimony, identification and rules of physical evidence? Can their standards of evidence meet the legal burden of proof in a given situation?

Perhaps Fernandez forgot the horrors Kampanyang Ahos in Mindanao; Operation Missing Link in the Southern Tagalog region; and Olympia in the National Capital Region.

“The Ahos campaign perpetrated grievous violations of the individual rights of the suspects, the standards of due process and the rules of scientific examination and weighing of evidence. The cases were formulated, investigated, judged and concluded through methods and processes that were extremely subjectivist, haphazard, arbitrary and defective,” CPP’s central committee noted.

Judicial rules of evidence are after all not forestry triangulation where the test of truth is less rigorous. The NPA and the PNP’s should lead from reasonable suspicion to preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt presented in an evidence-based court of law.