A Department of Justice task force recommended that the agency conduct a probe on the killing of activist Zara Alvarez in Bacolod City.
“The AO35 Secretariat today recommended the inclusion of the Zara Alvarez case in the docket of the task force,” Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete, who heads the task force, said.
Under AO 35, DOJ prosecutors will lead a team of investigators from law enforcement agencies which will be tapped to conduct the probe.
Earlier, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the DOJ “may consider” investigating the death of Alvarez.
The 39-year old Alvaez was shot dead Monday night in Bacolod City. She was a teacher, a single mother, and a former campaign and education director and a current paralegal of human rights group Karapatan, the organization said.
She also served as research and advocacy officer of the Negros Island Health Integrated Program of the rights organization.
Karapatan said Alvarez was the 13th member of their group who was killed during the Duterte administration.
They claimed that she had been threatened, harassed, and falsely charged with murder by the military in 2013, but was acquitted last March.
Alvarez was killed one week after another activist, peace consultant Randall Echanis, was found dead in Quezon City.
A separate AO35 special investigating team is also looking into the Echanis case.
As this developed, the Commission on Human Rights has voiced concern over the killing of Alvarez.
“The Commission on Human Rights sees this as a cause for concern, especially that the number of cases is still growing and justice is nowhere in sight,” CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said.
“She has been a target of red-tagging and was once part of the list in 2018 of more than 600 people that the Department of Justice wanted to tag as terrorists. However, her name was taken off the said list, but the exclusion still did not spare her from the ultimate violation of her rights—succumbing to death after being shot on Monday night by unidentified perpetrators,” De Guia added.
De Guia also denounced the alleged government’s ‘red-tagging’ against critical to the government.
“CHR stresses, as reflected in its Report on the Situation of Human Right Defenders in the Philippines (2020), that the act of red-tagging of human rights defenders alone already constitutes a grave threat to their lives, liberty, and security,” De Guia said.
“Tagging human rights workers and advocates as terrorists distorts the nature of their work and makes them open, legitimate targets to attacks and a number of violations. Even if the killing of Alvarez was not linked to her work, it does not erase the duty of the government to prevent arbitrary deprivation of life from happening, as well as keeping communities safe and free from attacks to human life and rights,” she added.
CHR Region IV’s Sub-Office in Bacolod has already launched a motu proprio investigation on the case to help in seeking justice for Alvarez’s death.
