NANCY Catamco, the lawmaker from North Cota-bato who calls herself Diwata or fairy, said the accusation that she has been coddling the suspects in the murder of Italian priest Fr. Fausto Tentorio is ‘ridiculously absurd.’
And the controversies she is now facing, said said, are all because of politics. “Understandably, election is forthcoming and this kind of black op or propaganda normally sells in the news,” she said in a statement.
Tentorio’s fellow Italian priest, Fr. Peter Geremia, tagged Catamco as the protector of the suspects. “There is no single shred of evidence that I coddle criminals,” she said. “The statement of Fr. Jeremiah is plainly so, so wrong on so many levels. He should understand that the burden to prove his allegations is incumbent upon him.” She, however, said that she will not comment on the case.
“It is not appropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation of Fr. Pops’ alleged murder case,” she said in the statement released Tuesday, August 18. “The DOJ created a special task force and a panel of investigators to investigate the alleged crime. I do not want to speculate or preempt their findings.”
But that she is giving the suspects protection is “inaccurate and dishonest allegations against me” hurled by her detractors. “This issue was already hurled against me in the 2013 elections and the same group staged a rally few days before the day of elections,” she said. “I suspect that this group was prodded to rehearse their failed attempt to unseat me as 2nd District Representative.”
Her detractors, she claimed, took advantage of the incident in UCCP Haran last month. Catamco was widely criticized when she led police, soldiers, and members of paramilitary group Alamara in evicting around 700 displaced indigenous peoples who were temporarily housed inside the UCCP compound in Davao City. The IPs refused to leave the place to return to their communities because of the presence of soldiers and the threats posed by the Alamara. The Haran incident, she said, gave her detractors “sufficient motivation to replay their desperate move to divert the attention of the investigating prosecutors from the real killers of Fr. Pops.” (JMT, NewsDesk)
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