Today, over two years since first hearing about this case I put my very poor social media skills to the test and set up a Facebook page Justice for Gaily. After driving for 4 hours to pick up the family, we decamped to the nearest café with Internet to try our luck. The page is set up.https://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-For-Gaily/741303995968337?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
It was again an emotional experience as we went through the photos choosing one for the profile picture and with the family insisting through the tears that we needed to upload the photos of Gaily’s death and her grave. The family left for home in Marawi over an hours drive away. Even longer, I think, on public transport. I offered to drive them but they insisted again with their customary humility that I had done enough. Countless times I have told the family that I am just doing my job. A responsibility they have interpreted as a kindness in the absence of any response from State mechanisms here in the Philippines. Their absence left me thinking. Why highlight this particular case, of all the cases that exist in Mindanao why this particular one?
It would be easy to say that the photos of Gaily moved me to action. They didn’t. I have seen worse. Is it the fact this child has been robbed of a future by actions of a state that revels in the impunity it has created? Not really as this doesn’t come as any surprise to me anymore. What I think drives me to support this family’s quest for justice is just that, they want justice. Despite insurmountable odds this family is insisting that the state apparatus do its job. A humble request no?
On August 8 2012 6-year old Gaily Miraato was killed by a “stray” bullet that all evidence would suggest came from an army outpost stationed close to her home. The family tells of the incident with obvious emotion. According to their initial and subsequent accounts the family was upstairs watching TV when they heard shots. Taking cover on the floor it wasn’t until later that they realized that Gaily had been hit. A bullet had pierced the wall of the house, entering Gaily’s body through her back and leaving through her chest. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the local hospital. The family reported the incident to the local police (a copy of the blotter is up on the Facebook page). Initial investigations by the Police SWAT team found empty M14 shells near the house. A basic Internet search shows that M14s are standard Philippine army issue.
Acting with incredible due diligence the family reported the crime to the Regional Human Rights Commission and to local human rights NGOs. An independent investigation was undertaken in which both the police, the Commission and the NGO concurred that given the trajectory of the bullet it could have only come from the army outpost clearly visible from the Miraato’s second floor. On the basis of the findings the case was referred to the Department of Justice. The Public Prosecutors Office to be precise. Given the rank of the army officers in charge that night the PPO referred the case to the Military and Law Enforcement Office of the National Ombudsman in Manila. It’s at this point that the wheels of justice seemed to shift into a low gear, effectively stopping altogether.
I was with the International Monitoring Team at this point as the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law expert. I was mandated by agreements between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to look into all violations of human rights and IHL allegedly perpetrated in the areas affected by the on-going conflict between the same. Our initial conversations with the family highlighted that no one seemed to be responding to the questions the family had: neither the commission, the NGO nor the ombudsman. Several attempts to draw the Peace Panels’ attention to the case through regular reporting also drew a blank. No one seemed to care. No one besides the family of course. Time and again the family contacted the commission but got little or no response. Later I was to be privy to a conversation in the commission in which high-ranking officials and staff laughed at the growing desperation of the family to bring justice to the perpetrators.
In early 2014 the Miraato family travelled to Manila, sponsored by a local coalition of human rights NGOs. It was during the first day that the family learnt that the Ombudsman is the absence of further supporting evidence from the family was set to rule in favour of the alleged perpetrators. Justice was on the brink of being eluded once again. Some fast calling got a 15-day extension and the support of a high profile lawyer in Manila. It seems that the Ombudsman had sent a letter to the family asking for further information but this letter never arrived. Subsequent investigations uncovered that the letter had never left the postmasters office in Iligan City. The Ombudsman had carried out no mutuo propio investigation. Still to this date they have not carried out any investigation leaving the burden of proof squarely on this humble family wrapped up in grief.
The Manila-based lawyer began requesting further information highlighting the discrepancies of the counter affidavits of the accused. The Army claimed there was a firefight that night. Notice they didn’t deny firing into the night. They claimed that the bullet entered Gaily’s chest and exited her back directly contradicting the police report and that of the commission investigation. The medical reports also attest to the trajectory established by the police. The army claimed that M14s where not standard issue and that that particular rifle was a favourite of illegal armed groups. Subsequent affidavits from those who would know, provide testimony to the contrary. There was no firefight at all. The evidence seemed stacked against the perpetrator in this case the army official who gave the command to shoot. Yet there has been no resolution from the Ombudsman.
Worse is that despite the weight of the evidence the commission ruled it “insufficient” to resolve the case. Anniversaries of the death have passed and nothing. Birthdays according to the family are still particularly hard to deal with. Pressure to reopen the case only got any traction in late 2014. To date there is still no official communication from the commission to the family that the case has been reopened neither have they asked the family for the new evidence that the family has managed to collect. This month the Manila based lawyer has filed a motion to resolve with the Ombudsman in Manila. The delay has been caused by the commission’s failure to provide video footage of the initial investigation and an affidavit attesting to its reliability. I have seen this video. The police are there with tape measures marking the trajectory and agreeing that the only place the bullet could have come from was the army outpost.
In Marawi there is a custom to pay “Blood Money” to the relatives of those killed. A local form of justice some would argue. The perpetrators of this crime paid the biological father of Gaily a sum with which he absconded. This by anyone’s standards is an admission of guilt. Neither the ombudsman or the commission has raised this point. In 2013 and again in 2014 the perpetrator visited the family “asking” them to sign an affidavit clearing them of any responsibility. Again another seeming admission of guilt yet no one, anyone, has chosen to pick up on and run with. What a pity that the commission can’t serve itself with a mandamus writ compelling it to do its job. The breadwinner of the family has since been forced to leave his job, as it seems the manager of the local electricity plant where he worked was also pressurising him to drop the case.
In a recent trip to Manila sponsored again by a local supporter of the family they met with Congress. On detailing the case the chief of staff of a Mindanao representative asked if the family had reported the case to the commission. The truth can only serve as a back- drop to the Regional Human Rights Commission’s campaign in Congress to survive the current transition to peace in Mindanao. But that as they say is another story.
To end, it just remains to be said that the army seems to have a habit of before settling in for the night to fire random shots into the darkness. The following expert is I hope self-explanatory. “One explanation subsequently offered was that the ambush-killing of troops in Magsaysay in October had generally made soldiers so tense that at the merest suggestion of an attack they pulled the trigger in a reflexive act of self-preservation. But panic hardly justified the lack of attention shown the victims and the accommodation apparently extended to the mysterious civilians in white headbands.” http://penpointers.blogspot.com/2006/11/tacub-massacre-revisited.html
Works at Resigning 