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THE COURT has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to explain its failure to submit documents regarding unclaimed bodies from the MV Princess of the Stars tragedy in June last year.
The order, which was the result of a request from the Public Attorney?s Office (PAO), threatened the NBI with contempt of court if the agency could not come up with a good enough explanation.
Dr. Renato Bautista, head of the National Bureau of Investigation-Disaster Victim Identification (NBI-DVI) unit, said he would reply to the court, telling Cebu Daily News that his schedule has been busy recently.
?I?m willing to submit what the PAO demanded from us. But I want the court to hear my side because we were never given a chance to submit our answers on the claims made by PAO,? Bautista said.
Maria G-ree Calinawan, regional director of PAO in Central Visayas, said the NBI documents were needed to cross-match the findings of forensic experts tapped by PAO.
PAO chief Rueda Persida Acosta yesterday asked the courts to allow the exhumation of unidentified bodies from the Princess of the Stars disaster, prompted by complaints of families who have not yet recovered the bodies of their loved ones who were believed to have perished in the sea tragedy.
The court quickly approved the request.
?We don?t have a problem with court approval. All we need to exhume the bodies are the documents from the NBI,? Calinawan said.
Until the documents are submitted, she said, the exhumation would have no definite schedule.
