Daughter of Taiwanese fisherman prepares murder charges

MANILA, Philippines - A daughter of the Taiwanese fisherman killed in an encounter with Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) personnel off Batanes last May 9 is preparing murder charges against those responsible for his death, a gmanews.tv report said yesterday.

This was according to Taiwanese lawyer Chih Ming Hsieh as reported by GMA News’ John Consulta on the program News to Go yesterday.

The report quoted the lawyer as saying that Hung’s daughter Tzu Chien is still trying to determine if she should file charges against the person who shot her father, or the one who ordered the shooting, or all the PCG crew of the vessel owned by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

At the Department of Justice, Secretary Leila de Lima said there would be no consolidation of findings in the parallel investigations into the fatal shooting of the alleged Taiwanese poacher.

“While both sides can sit down and discuss their findings, it is understood that neither can impose on the other its own conclusions. That’s the essence of parallel probes as against a joint probe,” De Lima told reporters yesterday.

She was reacting to a statement from Taiwan’s International Cross-Straits Legal Affairs director Chen Wen-chen that his government would insist on criminal liability of the PCG personnel involved in the incident.

Chen was quoted as saying that Taiwan expects no “major difference in the findings because we are looking at the same evidence.”

But for De Lima, this is not always the case.

“The conclusions of both teams may be exactly the same, or the same in certain respects but different in other aspects, or entirely different, depending on each team’s assessment or appreciation of the overall facts and evidence,” she explained.

Probe ends today?

Meanwhile, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Taiwanese authorities are expected to conclude today their respective investigations done in each other’s country.

In Manila, Taiwanese prosecutors and investigators again viewed yesterday video footage of the incident.

Earlier, they inspected the BFAR-owned MCS 3001 vessel and completed a ballistic examination of the firearms used by PCG personnel, including eight M-16 rifles, six M-14 rifles and a machine gun.

NBI deputy director for regional operations services Virgilio Mendez said the visiting team would be ready to go back to Taipei tonight.

In Taipei, the NBI team led by foreign liaison division chief head agent Daniel Deganzo inspected the Taiwanese fishing vessel Guang Ta Hsin 28 at the Kaohshiung port.

They had also interviewed the companions of Hung as well as his daughter.

Earlier, Taiwanese authorities rejected a request from the NBI team to re-autopsy the remains of Hung.

At the House of Representatives, the Taiwanese can count on sympathy from the opposition leader.  Officials of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) met yesterday with House Minority Leader Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez who vowed to look into the matter while scoring President Aquino for his belated apology for the death of Hung.

“They said it is not an isolated case or incidental. They called it a cold-blooded killing,” Suarez said of the TECO officials’ view of the May 9 incident.

“The minority is fully behind the parallel investigations on the sea mishap between our countries,” Suarez told the TECO group led by David Chen.

“Whatever diplomatic issues might have been behind the shooting, the loss of a life should have been another matter which should have prompted our government to have been quick on the hips in drawing out an apology,” Suarez said.

He said the opposition bloc is awaiting the results of the government investigation. – With Edu Punay, Paolo Romero, Rey Galupo, Evelyn Macairan