Suspicious persons seen lurking around Rep. Satur Ocampo’s house after fiscals find ‘probable cause’ to charge him anew for murder

Friends at Bayan Muna texted me this morning to tell me that some loonies are now seen milling around the residence of House Minority Leader Satur Ocampo in Heroes Hill, Quezon City.

This may be part of government preparations for arresting Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza, former Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano and Ocampo, who face new charges of multiple murder in Nueva Ecija.

If you remember, some veiled widows filed disqualification charges before the Commission on Elections against Bayan Muna, Gabriela and Anakpawis and the then-nominees Maza, Mariano and Ocampo. The widows alleged that the partylist groups and nominees were behind the purported murder of their husbands. The Comelec has since trashed the cases, which had all the hallmarks of being part of the “legal offensive” of the counterinsurgency Oplan Bantay Laya.

The said disqualification case stemmed from the murder cases the widows filed before prosecutors in Nueva Ecija. The latter recently found probable cause to charge Ocampo et al.

The finding of probable cause against the lawmakers came at about the same time Ocampo led a  parliamentary delegation to Canada which met their counterparts there and campaigned against political killings in the Philippines, at about the same time Eduardo Ermita personally led the Philippine report before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, and at about the same time Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino was reporting about the issue of political persecution before the Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly in Cape Town.

The widows also face court charges, by the way.

To know more about the case, please refer to Bayan Muna’s answer to the disqualification case and to this news item about a similar attempt by the partylist of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales.