(Eagle News) — Only a court of law can mete out any form of penalty against anyone violating the laws of the country.
This was the response of Senator Panfilo Lacson to a statement over the weekend from the National Democratic Front ordering the arrest of President Benigno Aquino III over the violent dispersal of farmers in Kidapawan on April 1, last year.
According to the NDF, former President Aquino should be made liable for committing crimes against humanity and other violations of human rights.
The violent Kidapawan dispersal left two persons dead and more than a dozen others injured.
Aside from Aquino, also ordered arrested were Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evangelista, North Cotabato Rep. Nancy Catamco, North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, and other police and military officials.
“The indictment recommended that the named respondents, after due trial by a People’s Court, be meted out with appropriate penalties for having committed the above-mentioned acts constituting war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law,” NDF Southern Luzon spokesperson Rubi del Mundo said.
According to Lacson, “..there is only one duly constituted authority that can mete out any form of penalty against anybody found violating the laws of the land.”
He said this was “a court of law of the Republic of the Philippines.”
“Anybody else is unauthorized and therefore illegal,” he said.
He said “when they perform such criminal act,” they should then “be made criminally liable.”
“It is the responsibility of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, as well as all law-abiding citizens of this country, to protect former President Aquino and all those places under the liquidation list of the CPP-NPA-NDF, who by any definition, are enemies of the state,” he added.