Four months after the so-called “Bloody Sunday” killings in which 9 activists were killed in separate operations in Southern Tagalog, a forensic pathologist has released the results of his examination of the remains.
Relatives approached well-known forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun to re-examine what killed 9.
According to the authorities, they all resisted the operation.
Fortun admitted that the examination was difficult because most of the corpses had been embalmed, but she could see similarities in the bullet wounds among those killed.
“One common factor among all the nine is that they received at least 2 gunshot wounds on the chest, aside from other areas that were also hit by gunfire… The common pattern is they were, as I said earlier already, apparently shot to be killed,” said Fortun.
“If you aim for the chest, that’s going to kill you, and that’s what happened,” she added.
According to Fortun, if the only purpose is to prevent a suspect from escaping, the authorities must have adequate training so that the arrests do not lead to murder.
“In the first place, if you’re state agents, you’re the police, you’re the military, are you not trained to react to this adverse situations and so on, such that you are able to protect yourself and also come up with an arrest, a real arrest of a living individual, not with a dead body?” said Fortun.
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One of the things that caught Fortun’s attention was the wounds on the finger of Chai Lemita-Evangelista, the only woman killed.
According to police, Evangelista fought with his wife, Ariel.
“Where is the evidence that they were armed? Two, that they actually fired back… Where is that weapon? That weapon at the scene should have been found. And can you now connect that to the victim, meaning that’s really him or hers?” said Fortun.
Fortun thinks that all cases where someone is killed in a police operation should have a homicide investigation to determine if they really fought back.
PNP chief Gen Guillermo Eleazar accepted the criticisms of police operations.
The Department of Justice has already included the Bloody Sunday killings to investigate the AO 35 Task Force on Extrajudicial Killings.
But according to the relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims, there is only one place to go for a crime scene ocular inspection.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra explained that it is difficult to reach the scene areas, but he assured that the investigation is still a priority here.
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