Fortun flags mishandling of bodies in Toboso killings

MANILA, Philippines — Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun said the bodies of those killed last month in Negros Occidental were so poorly handled that one was returned to the wrong family and some clothing ended up missing or mislabelled — lapses she says make it difficult to fully reconstruct what happened to the 19 who died. 

Sharing initial autopsy findings on five of the 19 killed in the April 19 incident, Fortun also raised questions that cut against the military's account of an "armed encounter," including how one body sustained gunshot wounds to the back. 

"We're talking of bodies that are not well preserved," Fortun said in mixed English and Filipino at a press briefing on Thursday, May 7. "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."  

The forensic pathologist received only two bags of clothing for the five bodies she autopsied, she said, and one of those bags carried the wrong name.

She repeatedly qualified her findings as preliminary pending a final report. 

Mass casualty incident 

Fortun examined five of the 19 killed after lawyers and relatives flew the bodies to Manila for independent autopsies. The first arrived on April 25 and the rest in the days that followed. 

She said she had asked to see all 19 but was given access so far only to the five. 

Fortun said the ideal is for her to examine "at least 13" but acknowledged this may no longer be possible given some have been cremated. 

Given the number of the dead, Fortun said this could be considered a "mass casualty incident." 

Three of the five bodies she examined had multiple gunshot wounds, Fortun said, with an undisclosed number of bullets recovered from each. 

"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," Fortun added.

The bodies arrived in Manila in advanced stages of decomposition, Fortun said. Some had been wrapped in plastic, "including the face." 

She has been told some of the dead were found in water, which she said would have damaged preservation further.

The most troubling case of mishandling, she said, was a body released to a family under the name of their missing relative, Errol Wendel. The family asked that the last name of the victim not be disclosed. 

After comparing the body's height, dental features, scars and clothing with what relatives knew of Errol, Fortun concluded 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," Fortun said.

"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.

The body is now classified as an unidentified adult male, and Errol's whereabouts are unknown.

"They were never shown the face. They were never told what was the basis. They were just told that is our missing relative, and it was released to them," Fortun said.

She appealed to relatives who had already buried or cremated remains to come forward and help locate Errol. 

She also urged them not to cremate the bodies to allow for autopsies to be done on the 14 others.

"Who decided back in Negros who these people are? So [that is] the question... The clothes were taken, and someone told me they [relatives] were only given numbers and names. Was there anything done to document to make sense of this body?" Fortun said. 

"A lot of questions on recovery, the handling and the disposition."

Findings that don't square with the military's 'encounter' account

Fortun stopped short of declaring the killings unlawful, but said her initial findings raise questions the military's narrative does not exactly answer.

Asked whether the dead bore signs of being combatants, as the Armed Forces of the Philippines has insisted, she replied: "Mahirap sagutin iyan [That's hard to answer]." 

Then she pointed to the wounds. "Bakit ang mga tama nila ay nasa likod kung confrontation iyan? [Why are their wounds in the back if this was a confrontation?]"

Fortun also mentioned the photographs the military had circulated of the scene, which show bodies in what officials have described as combat gear. 

On one of the bodies recovered from water, she said, she found an ammunition pouch. "Wala naman laman [It was empty]," Fortun said. 

She said she had seen similar cases before in which a victim was photographed in a vest that did not match the wounds on the body. 

"Kung may tama siya doon at suot niya 'yung vest, eh may butas din si vest [If he was hit there and was wearing the vest, the vest should also have a hole]," she said. "But I have no access to that." 

The case of one woman shot four times troubled her most, Fortun said. Three of the gunshots she suffered were not fatal. The wound that killed her was to the leg, where bullets struck an artery and a vein. 

"So ang tanong doon is, teka muna, dito ko binato sa mga lawyers yan eh. Hindi ba 'yan war crime? Kasi injured, dapat attended ito," Fortun said. 

(So the question there—and I pose this to the lawyers—is: wait a minute, isn't that a war crime? Because the person was injured; they should have been attended to.)

"Ibig sabihin nagdugo sya sa scene. Wala kayong ginawa," she added.

(This means she bled at the scene, and you did nothing.)

Another body showed signs of having aspirated blood after being struck in the airway, Fortun said. 

Small abrasions and contusions on some of the dead were consistent with a person who had been shot, fallen, and then shot again, possibly from behind, the forensic pathologist added.

Fortun also took issue with the death certificates issued in Negros Occidental. Some carried no cause of death at all. Several recorded only generic entries such as "gunshot wounds at the head/trunk."

The forensic pathologist also addressed a piece of online slang that has trailed the Toboso killings since they happened. 

In the days after the operation, social media posts and comments circulated mocking the dead as "corned beef" — a term used by those supporting the operation to describe the bodies of those killed, likening severely damaged remains to 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. People who were killed," she added. "And that could be you or anyone you know."