Following autopsy reports of the 19 bodies that were killed in Negros Occidental last month, forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun questioned military accounts of an armed encounter in a press conference on May 7.
Sharing findings from five of the 19 killed during the encounter on Apr. 19, she flagged the account, expressing concerns of how an encounter occurred if a body was observed to have sustained a gunshot wound in the back.
"How many were hit in the head? That is three. Five in the trunk. 'Yung iba multiple: may head, may trunk; head, upper and lower extremities—at least tatlo," the expert observed.
"Bakit ang mga tama nila ay nasa likod kung confrontation iyan?,” she later added.
Furthermore, Fortun said that the bodies were improperly handled, to the point that one body was sent to the wrong family and some clothes of the victims were lost or mislabelled.
The investigator was able to receive two bags of clothing for the five victims, in which one carried the wrong name.
These incidents make it difficult to “fully reconstruct” the events that transpired on the day of the attacks, she concluded.
However, the forensic pathologist critiqued that all the bodies should have been probed by investigators in order to determine the events that led to their deaths.
"In the first place, all of these cases should have undergone basic homicide investigation, which means starting with the CSI [crime scene investigation], where they fell, where they dropped, and so on," Fortun said.
The alleged mishandling of bodies was troubling, with the most, according to her, being a body which was given to a family of a missing relative named Errol Wendel. Yet after comparing the body’s physical features including height, teeth, and clothing, it was not him.
"Everything was off. The body length didn't match his height. The teeth didn't match. The scars didn't match. The clothes—I don't know if those were really his clothes—[the relative said] 'My brother wouldn't wear something like that," she added.
Although the forensic pathologist avoided declaring the military-led killing as unlawful, her findings raised questions on some of the military’s narratives of the event.
She mentioned that photographs released by the military, which showed bodies wearing combat gear, according to officials, as questionable. On one body that was recovered from water, an ammunition pouch was found. However, Fortun said that the pouch was “empty.”
"Kung may tama siya doon at suot niya 'yung vest, eh may butas din si vest,” she said. "But I have no access to that." she adds.
The pathologist also raised flags on the death certificates of the bodies issues in Negros Occidental, which some carried no cause of death, with only several bodies labelled with generic entries including “gunshot wounds at the head/trunk.”
She also addressed concens over an online slang which grew popular since the Negros incident.
Following the operations, multiple social media posts and comments went viral, mocking the deaths as “corned beef.” This is a term used by supporters to describe bodies of slain people, comparing the severely damaged remains to a canned meat.
"That's supposed to be insulting, that the remains are reduced to corned beef. Let me say to those people: 'No, they don't look like that.' They don't look anything like corned beef. Take it from me, because I see a lot of their bodies," she said.
"You know what they look like? People with injuries," she added. "And that could be you or anyone you know," she warned.
Written by Insight PH
Insight PH is a dedicated campus journalist and contributor. Their insightful writing sparks meaningful conversations and keeps the community informed.
