MANILA, Philippines – A day after his family was buried, Dexter Carlos, the husband and father of massacre victims in Bulacan, went to the Department of Justice to meet with Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
Carlos asked that he be admitted into the DOJ’s Witness Protection Program (WPP).
The WPP, established under Republic Act No. 6981 or The Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act, seeks to encourage a person who has witnessed or has knowledge of the commission of a crime to testify before a court or quasi-judicial body, or before an investigating authority, by protecting him from reprisals and from economic dislocation.
Pending the assessment of his application, the DOJ placed Carlos under the program’s provisional custody.
If admitted into the WPP, Carlos would receive assistance from the department that includes the following: security protection and escort services; immunity from criminal prosecution; housing facility, assistance in obtaining a means of livelihood; traveling expenses and subsistence allowance while acting as a witness; and free medical treatment, hospitalization and medicine for any injury or illness incurred or suffered while acting as a witness.
The law would also entitle him to receive burial benefits of of at least P10,000 if he is killed because of his participation in the program.
Carlos, a security guard, would likewise be protected from being removed or demoted in work because of absences due to his being a witness and would be paid his full salary while acting as witness.
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