Indemnify victims of NPA-CPP abuses—task force
The New People’s Army and officials of the Communist Party of the Philippines, collectively referred to as a communist terrorist group, may be compelled to indemnify victims of their human rights abuses and atrocities in the amount of billions of pesos, a spokesman for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, said on Wednesday.
Undersecretary Severo Catura, Executive Director of the Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat (PHRCS), explained that under existing local and international laws, particularly the International Humanitarian Law, parties that are found guilty of such abuses and atrocities committed in a situation of internal armed conflict may be compelled by the courts to indemnify their victims.
Under Section 14 of Republic Act No. 9851, or the “Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity” signed into law on 11 December 2009, Catura said the courts follow the principles relating to reparations, including restitution, compensation and rehabilitation, and determine the amount of the same based on the scope and extent of damages inflicted.
“However, regardless of the amount that shall be determined and demanded by the courts, it cannot equal the pain and suffering brought about by past and present human rights abuses and atrocities perpetrated by the CTGs,” Catura, also NTF-ELCAC spokesperson on Human Rights, Peace Process and international Engagements stressed.
“It is high time that they are held accountable for their spate of willful killings, their destruction of government and private property, their use of children as combatants, their internal purges, and their wanton disregard for human rights,” Catura added.
“Already, the AFP has submitted a list of CPP-NPA atrocities and the same shall be judiciously acted upon, and we shall likewis