Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Monday (March 8) defended the statement made by President Rodrigo Duterte to kill all communist rebels.

Guevarra told reporters that it remains unclear if the statement is what prompted police and the military to kill nine persons during joint operations they conducted in Southern Luzon on Sunday (March 7).

“The President has always been vocal about yung fight against these communist terrorist groups,” he said.

With this, Guevarra believes it would be better to “see what really are the facts.”

“Mahirap magsabi na it’s because of what the President said,” the secretary pointed out.

“We don’t really know the facts as yet,” he added.

Because if this, the secretary declared “the best thing to do really is to conduct a fact-finding investigation.”

Guevarra said the inter-agency task force on extra-judicial killings, also known as the Administrative Order (AO) 35 task force, will discuss this possibility this month.