Satur still elusive

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has yet to catch fugitive Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, who is wanted for 15 counts of murder in connection with a mass grave unearthed in Leyte last year.

"The court can interpret his flight (as) an indication of guilt," PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao Jr. said after Ocampo failed to keep his promise to surrender either last Sunday or yesterday.

The PNP announced earlier that all units have intensified the manhunt for Ocampo.

"It would be reflective of what kind of a person he is. As a man he should honor his word," Pagdilao said. "As far as the PNP is concerned, we don’t take his word. We are duty-bound to conduct manhunt operations against him."

He believes that Ocampo will soon be arrested and made to face the charges against him so the relatives of the 15 victims will finally get justice.

Pagdilao also denied allegations by some militants that the government is after them.

"There is no basis that other militant personalities will be the next target," he said, adding that in a democratic country, no branch of government can influence the others.

Ocampo, communist leaders Jose Maria Sison and Luis Jalandoni, and 50 other co-accused were indicted on 15 counts of murder allegedly committed during "Oplan Ahos," which purged the ranks of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) of "spies and counter-revolutionaries" from 1985 to 1991.

The remains of the 15 murder victims were among 67 bodies exhumed by government investigators from the NPA "killing fields" in Sitio Sapang Daco, Barangay Kaulisihan, Inopacan town in Leyte on Aug. 26 last year after four former NPA members who had first-hand knowledge of the mass murder led military troops and police investigators to the site.

The four witnesses claimed the killings were carried out on orders of Sison, Jalandoni, and Ocampo, all ranking officials of the communist movement.