Negros Occidental 3rd District Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez has withdrawn his call for a congressional inquiry into the April 19 encounter in Toboso, Negros Occidental that left 19 people dead.
Benitez said the ongoing investigations by government agencies, including that of the Commission on Human Rights, should be allowed to proceed.
‘The right course is to let these processes run the full course without political interference,’ Benitez said.
‘Justice is best served by institutions doing their work, not by Congress getting ahead of them,’ he added.
He explained that he filed the resolution seeking an inquiry in aid of legislation as a fact-finding measure, but decided not to pursue it after multiple investigations were initiated.
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) earlier called on the public to refrain from drawing premature conclusions on the incident, stressing that a full forensic and operational investigation is still ongoing.
Ernesto Torres Jr., NTF-ELCAC executive director, said the preliminary observations of forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun should be treated with respect but viewed within the broader context of a comprehensive investigation into the incident.
Torres emphasized that mass-casualty investigations require extensive procedures, including crime scene processing, cadaver recovery, autopsy examinations, ballistic analysis, witness interviews and chain-of-custody verifications before any definitive conclusions can be reached.