BOI chairman Lt. General Rafael Valencia, the Philippine Army’s inspector general, said on Sunday they are confident of completing the investigation report soon and send it to the AFP chief by Wednesday.
“We will just submit the report to the AFP Chief of Staff. It will
be his call if he will make the report public,” Valencia told reporters here.
The AFP BOI team checked the encounter site at Sitio Lunoy, San
Roque village in Sta Rita, Samar on June 27. Soldiers of the 87th Infantry
Battalion involved in the incident re-enacted the "misencounter."
The board is composed of personnel from the AFP general headquarters,
Philippine Army main headquarters, and 8th ID based in Catbalogan City in
Samar.
Six junior police officers were killed and nine others were
wounded in the "misencounter" between patrolling lawmen and soldiers.
Both teams were in the area, acting on report of sightings of New People’s Army
in Sta. Rita town.
The investigation on the incident seeks to find out if
coordination was done properly and if the information reached ground troops.
“We are also looking at the possibility that the standard operating
procedure was not followed by both sides. It’s not yet clear, that is why we
are still investigating it and looking at it closely,” Valencia added.
The military official clarified that their team is only focused on
fact-finding and that they can only recommend further investigation and not to
recommend for the appropriate office or agency to take legal action.
In a statement issued Saturday, Philippine Army 8th Infantry
Division commander Maj. Gen. Raul Farnacio vowed to help “expedite the conduct of
the investigation so that the truth will be established and ease the burden of
sorrow of the bereaved families.”
“We will be objective and transparent to shed light on the
incident and will make appropriate actions thereafter to those who will be
proven to have committed any lapses or violated established rules and
regulations,” Farnacio said.
The top military official in the region assured full cooperation
in the ongoing investigation.
The Army issued a formal letter of apology a day after President
Rodrigo R. Duterte claimed that the "misencounter" in Sta. Rita town
is his fault, being the top commander of the military and the police.
“I’d like to tell you that the ultimate blame was on me being the
Commander-in-Chief because I am their leader. There was a lot of tragic stories
around the incident. I told the families to forget it since it was not
intentionally done,” Duterte told the crowd gathered at the Balyuan
Amphitheater for the Sangyaw Festival Parade of Lights on Friday night.
The Chief Executive delivered his speech after briefly visiting
the wake of the slain policemen at the Philippine National Police (PNP)
regional headquarters in Palo, Leyte and the wounded policemen at the Eastern
Visayas Regional Medical Center.
“You know, the Murphy’s Law operates the way it is. If things can
go wrong, it will go wrong. And so I said to the police and soldiers, I am your
commander and it’s all my fault. Let us forget the hurt. Allow the
investigation to go on and let us see what develops in the future,” Duterte
said. (RTA/PNA)
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