MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 4, 2013) – The family of slain botanist Leonard Co and the human rights group Hustisya were disappointed over the Department of Justice resolution to file charges of reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide instead of murder on the soldiers involved in the killing of botanist Leonard Co and two others.
Hustisya Secretary General Cristina Guevarra said that the DOJ’s stand to downgrade the charges against the soldiers manifests a slipshod attempt to allegedly whitewash the incident and free the soldiers of their accountability.
She said their group also condemned the flimsy alibi of the soldiers that the killing was merely an “honest mistake.”
“Amid their posturing to subscribe to due process, their attempts to mislead the public and cover up the dastardly act makes them all the more guilty of murder.The massacre of Leonard Co and company was not an accident, the soldiers were there to kill,” Guevarra said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Glenda Co, wife of the slain botanist, said they were also not happy with the resolution.
“We are not happy with the resolution. We do not agree that the killing of my husband Leonard, and his companions Sofronio Cortez and Julius Borromeo, is a simple case of homicide,” she said in the same statement.
Reiterating that the killing of Leonard, Cortez and Borromeo is murder, Co said the DOJ ignored the results of the independent fact-finding mission led by the “Justice for Leonard Co Movement” just 10 days after the incident.
“We have waited this long only to suffer another injustice. By ignoring the need for justice, they have also ignored the life of service that Leonard and his companions had done to their last breath,” Co said.
Results of the fact-finding team in 2010 belied claims by the Armed Forces of the Philippines that the three were killed in a crossfire with members of the New People’s Army on November 15 of the same year.
The mission team, participated in by scientists and human rights advocates, led by Dr. Giovanni Tapang, revealed that there was no firefight; and that the continuing bursts of gunfire that felled Co and company was one-sided, originating only from where the soldiers of 16th Infantry Battalion were positioned.
The Commission on Human Rights also issued its recommendations last year to file charges against the soldiers.
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