Upgrade charges vs. Leonard Co slay suspects to murder, DOJ urged anew

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has again been urged to pursue murder charges against the soldiers accused of killing noted Filipino botanist Leonard Co eight years ago.

While the DOJ pressed charges against nine Philippine Army soldiers in 2013, it accused them of reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide, lower than murder.

This had prompted Co's family to petition the DOJ to upgrade the charges to murder, but the pleading remains pending, the Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (Agham) said as they held a protest action outside the department headquarters in Manila on Wednesday.

The accused soldiers are set to be arraigned for the reckless imprudence case before the Kananga Municipal Trial Court in Leyte on November 14, just a day before the eighth anniversary of Co and his companions' death, Agham said.

It added that the obstruction of justice case against the accused has already been dismissed in July.

"The family of the Kananga killings have agonizingly suffered for eight years without a sliver of hope for justice for the brutal deaths of their loved ones," the group said, adding that the Duterte administration is "completely oblivious of the crimes committed by state forces, past and present."

"Agham calls on the DOJ to uphold the untarnished truth and judiciously raise the case to murder and hold the elements of the 19th Infantry Battalion accountable for their crimes."

The military had claimed that Co, Sofronio Cortez and Julius Borromeo, who were then conducting research for a forest restoration project, were caught in a crossfire between an Army unit and New People's Army rebels on November 15, 2010.

However, an independent probe by Agham belied the military's claim. Policarpio Balute, a farmer who served as a guide for the research team and survived the incident, said he witnessed gunfire coming from only one direction.

It was reported in 2015 that scientists were continuing one of Co's projects — a first modern overview of all indigenous plants in the Philippines. — MDM, GMA News