FLAG calls on police to return Echanis’ remains to his family

The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) on Tuesday called on the Philippine National Police (PNP) to immediately return the body of peasant leader Randall Echanis to his family.

Saying there is no legal basis for the police's "snatching" of the remains of the Anakpawis chairman, FLAG urged the police to turn over its investigation of the incident, if any, to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

Anakpawis said Monday that Echanis, a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, and a neighbor were killed in a rented house in Novaliches, Quezon City.

Echanis' wife, Erlinda, has identified the victim as her husband, but police claimed he was not among those killed.

Erlinda also claimed that police "forcibly took" her husband's remains from the funeral parlor on Monday night.  

"That is cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment defined as torture by the law. There is certainly no legal or moral justification for the indignity inflicted on the grieving family and friends of Mr. Echanis," FLAG said in a statement.

Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, made a similar remark.

"There is dubious legal basis for this absurd and outrageous move. It is inhuman and abhorrent to morals and our culture. It is criminal," Olalia said in a statement.

A paralegal keeping watch of the remains was arrested, Anakpawis also said Tuesday.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered the AO 35 task force on extrajudicial killings to form a team to investigate the incident. Administrative Order 35 covers the killings of persons such as labor and peasant leaders because of their advocacies.

In the statement signed by FLAG chair Chel Diokno, the lawyers' group urged Guevarra to order the NBI to look into the killings of Echanis and Louie Tagapia.

FLAG also called on the PNP to administratively discipline the officers who seized Echanis' remains and to release the arrested paralegal.

In addition, FLAG urged the authorities to allow the remains of Echanis and Tagapia to be autopsied by a forensic pathologist chosen by their families.

They said all indications show that Echanis and Tagapia were "peacefully inside a private dwelling and were not engaged in any acts that would even remotely justify the use of armed force by the authorities, their agents, or cohorts" when they were killed. — RSJ, GMA News