Commission on Human Rights slams denial of search warrant

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has assailed the rejection by a Davao City judge of the application for a search warrant of an inter-agency task force investigating the existence of the so-called Davao Death Squad.

The task force sought the search warrant after its members chanced upon what appeared to be a bone from a human leg in a creek near a property suspected to be the dumping ground of bodies of victims of summary killings in Davao City.

In a statement, the CHR said the Davao City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 15, presided over by Judge Ridgway Tandili, denied the application for the search warrant in an order last Tuesday purportedly for lack of probable cause.

Tandili was the fourth judge to whom the task force’s application was assigned.

“What more probable cause (does) the judge need? There were bones found in the exact spot covered by the existing search warrant issued by (the) Manila RTC,” an apparently dismayed CHR chief Leila de Lima said.

“The fact that the initial search yielded positive results is an indication that the task force and the Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) team acted on good, solid information, and that the ongoing search is not at all a fishing expedition,” she added.