Mahina kaso: Guevarra urged to free detained IP leader

Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra should drop the murder case against indigenous leader Windell Bolinget, political prisoners support group Kapatid urged.

“While we ask the DOJ to heed the call of Windel’s family for due process of law and that his rights to fair and impartial trial be respected, we strongly assert that the case lodged against him should be dropped and that he should be freed as the case has no leg to stand on because it is built on nothing and as what we have been always saying, from nothing comes nothing,” Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim said in a statement.

Lim pointed out Guevarra “should be faithfully carrying out the DOJ’s mission of ‘effective, efficient and equitable administration of justice’ instead of doing the opposite by taking the lead in prosecuting and persecuting activists.”

Bolinget, chairperson of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), currently in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Baguio City.

He is among alleged members of the New People’s Army (NPA) charged over the 2018 murder case in Davao del Norte.

However, Lim pointed out Bolinget, who is also one of the petitioners seeking the declare the Anti-Terrorism Law as unconstitutional, has never been to Davao del Norte.

Meanwhile, Lim said Balinget’s legal counsel, lawyer Jose Molintas has sought before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 30 in Tagum City that the case be reinvestigated by the DOJ because the indigenous leader was not given the opportunity to appear during the preliminary investigation.