Perez: Charges for Miranda bombing no longer possible

Government can no longer pin down communist leader Jose Ma. Sison for the August 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing since the crime of murder has already prescribed, Justice Secretary Hernando Perez said yesterday.

"We could not file the charges because 30 years have lapsed already and the 20-year prescription period has lapsed," he told reporters.

Perez’s statement also indicated that no investigation can be done by any government agency since charges could not be filed because courts will just throw out the suits.

The bombing incident issue resurfaced after former Senate President Jovito Salonga launched his book entitled " A Journey of Struggle and Hope" which detailed his experience when the Liberal Party was holding a rally in Quiapo, Manila.

Salonga accused Sison of masterminding the bombing which left nine people dead, based on the admission of Col. Victor Corpus, a former PMA instructor who defected to the New People’s Army and is now chief of ISAFP.

According to Corpus, Sison wanted to drive the moderates to the left, and expand further the communist rebel’s strength under the reign of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos that drove him to order two of his men to throw the grenades.

All available evidence point to the National Democratic Front leader, who is now in exile in The Hague, Netherlands, said Salonga. He disclosed Sison ordered Danny Cordero and two others to carry out the plan.

Sison, on the other hand, said the former Presidential Commission on Good Government chief is only suffering from a "psychological problem" which he called an "obsession." — Delon Porcalla