Bayan Muna solon files complaint with CHR over military’s ‘desecration’ of daughter’s remains

MANILA, Philippines — Rep. Eufemia Cullamat (Bayan Muna party-list) filed Tuesday a complaint before the Commission on Human Rights over the “desecration” of the remains of her daughter, who the military said was killed in an encounter with the New People’s Army in Marihatag, Surigao del Sur.

“My daughter’s remains were ruthlessly and crassly paraded and displayed as if it were a trophy won by soldiers who posed in the background,” Cullamat said in Filipino in her three-page complaint to the commission.

She said that what the soldiers did to the remains of her 22-year-old daughter, Jevilyn, was a violation of international humanitarian laws, particularly Article 16 of the fourth Geneva Convention, which states that all parties to a conflict shall protect all killed against “pillage and ill-treatment.”

She added that the military’s treatment of her daughter also violated the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity, and the government’s agreement with communist rebels on the respect for human rights and international humanitarian law.

“Wose, those photos [of my daughter] is also being used for black propaganda and the continued red-tagging and terrorist-tagging against me, my family and the entire Makabayan bloc of the House of Representatives,” Cullamat said in Filipino. “This is not acceptable and I strongly condemn this.”

The army reported that Jevilyn, Cullamat’s youngest daughter, was the lone casualty in an encounter last Saturday between some 30 New People’s Army combatants and the Philippine Army’s 3rd Special Forces Battalion.

Military officials said in a report that Jevilyn served as a medic of the New People's Army and belonged to the Sandatahang Yunit Pampropaganda Platoon of Guerilla Front 19, Northeastern Regional Committee.

According to the rules of war under international humanitarian law, particularly Rule 25, permanent medical personnel “shall be respected and protected at all times: they may not be made the object of attack but may not participate in hostilities either."

The same report stated that Jevilyn’s body was immediately evacuated and her siblings and members of her family were immediately notified prior to her death being publicly reported. — with a report from Franco Luna