Bulatlat

Luisito Bustamante had two stories to tell about his ordeal under the custody of the military. He admitted before the court, during the hearing of a writ of amparo filed by his family, that he was a member of the NPA and that he was not tortured. But minutes after his release, he recounted the horrors he suffered at the hands of his abductors.

BY GEMELINA A. LACORTE
Davao Today
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 42, November 25-Decemer 1, 2007

DAVAO CITY- Luisito Bustamante, the youth earlier reported missing when militiamen held him in a Task Force Davao checkpoint in barangay Malabog last month, had two stories to tell.

The first one, he told the Court in a writ of amparo hearing that freed him from his captors; the other one, he told his friends and family after the Court had declared him free.

Luisito, 22, admitted during the hearing that he was a member of the Communist New People’s Army (NPA), and called the militiaman who held him, a “pastor.”

He told the Court that not even his fingertips were touched when he was in captivity, belying any possibility of torture.

But an hour after the hearing, Luisito told a different story. He showed his mother and friends the marks of cigarette burns on his neck and back, the scars on his ankles, which days before, were bound in metal chains. He also told them how, for several days after he was held for questioning on October 27, he was blindfolded, was repeatedly beaten and did not know where he was. He said that in one of those beatings, he defecated in his pants and was made to swallow his own human waste.

Tortured. Luisito Bustamante shows the burns on his neck and marks of the metal chain on his feet which were used by his captors to bind him. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)

“I heard someone say, ‘Wash him, he stinks,’” Luisito said in Cebuano. “They washed me.”

“After that, I heard someone said, ‘Open your mouth!”

“So, I opened my mouth. They put it inside my mouth. I wanted to spit it out but they threatened to beat me again.”

“Swallow!” one of them shouted.

“Did you swallow it?” one of his neighbors asked.

Luisito nodded, grimacing, as silence momentarily seized those who surrounded him.

“Never mind, Dong,” a neighbor, Ederlita Lorenzana, comforted him. “Just think, it was your dirt and not someone else.”

Exactly a week after Luisito’s mother, Bebelita, filed the petition for writ of amparo on November 7, Luisito was finally released. He was presented to the Regional Trial Court by Noli Ubat and 73rd IB Chief Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Ambal in a hearing for writ of amparo, one of the test cases on the new Supreme Court ruling that seeks to put a stop to the increasing number of extra-legal killings and enforced disappearances in the country.

Earlier, Luisito was reported missing after he was held for questioning in a Task Force Davao checkpoint in Malabog, headed by Ubat. He and his friends Avelino Lorenzana, 20, and Salazar Amad, 23, were on their way to Malabog Proper to distribute barangay election handbills.

Executive Judge Isaac Robillo, Jr. of the RTC Branch 13, said the Court was satisfied that there is no need for further protection for Luisito, after the youth, himself, admitted throughout the hearing that he was a member of the NPA; and that he went to Ubat voluntarily, because he wanted to “live in peace and return to the folds of the law.”

The Judge said that the purpose of the writ of amparo hearing was to determine whether his life, liberty and security was under threat.

The Judge directed the military to give protection to Luisito, “without unnecessarily restricting him.” The Court placed Luisito under the “protective custody” of the military but allowed him to “move freely,” giving him the choice whether to go with Ubat or with his mother.

During the hearing, to the consternation of Luisito’s friends, Luisito told the Court he wanted to be kept in custody of Ubat, the militiaman who captured him, whom he kept calling a “pastor.” The Court asked Ubat if he was, indeed, a pastor. Ubat said he was only a member of the sect of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy’s “Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name above Every Name.”

About an hour later, Luisito told his friends that everyone in the military camp where he was brought called Ubat, “pastor,” which prompted him to follow suit.

“It appears in Court that he is not threatened,” the Judge said, explaining that the writ of amparo is “not an administrative case, not even a criminal case, nor a civil case.” “We are only here to protect a person whose life, liberty and security is threatened,” he said.

“If the mother is deprived of this liberty later on, she can come back to Court again and we will deal with it,” the Judge said.

Ambal, 73rd IB chief, accepted the protection order. He said the military will ensure that no harm will come to Luisito, whether from the military or from the Communist rebels. He said that not only the 73rd IB but also the whole 10th ID of the AFP is responsible for protecting Luisito.

Lawyers from the Office of the Solicitor General assisting the respondents Ubat and Lt. Col Ambal presented a signed affidavit, containing Luisito’s admission as a member of the NPA.

But when asked where he signed the affidavit, Luisito said it was in Camp Panacan, the regional police headquarters. He was at a loss for an answer when lawyers from the Union of Peoples Lawyers of Mindanao (UPLM), Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) asked him whether there were soldiers around when he signed the document.

In issuing the protective custody, the Judge was momentarily baffled because he said, the protection order is “supposed to be granted to a peace officer (probably from the military) or such person or organization, accredited by the Supreme Court.”

“But I have yet to see any accredited organization,” Judge Robillo said. “This is a very new rule and no one has yet file an accreditation.”

Based on the youth’s affidavit, the Judge was also concerned “against whom Luisito needs protection; whether from the military or “from his former comrades?”

But minutes after his release, Luisito finally decided to join his mother, whose petition for the writ of amparo was earlier assisted by the human rights group Karapatan.

Later, Luisito explained he was “too scared and confused,” that he had agreed to cooperate with his captors. “They told me that I should tell the Court what they wanted me to say so that no one gets hurt,” he told a neighbor, Ederlita Lorenzana, “I was at a loss because, how could I memorize everything that they said? It was not true.”

Luisito recounted his ordeal after 20 days with his captors. He recalled how they covered his head with plastic (cellophane), making it hard for him to breathe. Once, they rubbed the plastic with hot pepper, making his nose, his eyes and entire face burn. He also said they stepped on his face, and then, on his back. He had been transferred from one safehouse to another during his capture, that it was no longer possible to keep track where he was at a given time. Once, while blindfolded, he said he heard a sack of cement and a spade, being brought in. He said that as he heard the metal blade of the spade mixing a mound of cement, he thought, “If they’re going to bury me alive, it will take a long time before I die.” He said that in the course of his ordeal, he had asked that the chain that bound his feet be removed because he wanted to relieve himself. His request was momentarily granted, which gave him a few moments to peep out of his blindfold and discovered he was at the edge of a cliff. “I was thinking of jumping off that cliff if they decided to kill me,” he said.

Ubat, known in the area as member of the CAFGU, but who claimed to head the Balogo Bagani Command, said that six days before Luisito’s capture, an armed encounter between the NPA and pursuing government troops occurred in Purok Calamitan of Malabog’s sitio Pamantawan, about one and a half kilometer away from sitio Balogo. A government soldier was killed during this encounter.

Ubat also said that there is a standing warrant for Luisito’s father Dionisio, one of the suspects in an October 6, 2006 ambush of the motorcycle he was riding that killed his pregnant wife. He said he was the target of that ambush. “We just came from church,” he recalled. “We were aboard a motorcycle on our way to sitio Quarry, when we were ambushed and my wife was killed.”

He also said that Luisito was brought in for questioning because he was earlier seen “carrying an armalite” and that he had joined his father.

Lieutenant Colonel Ambal said the military will ensure that no harm will come to Luisito now that he is under the protective custody of the military. He also said that Luisito is now “free to move around.”

“He is now a free man,” Ambal said. “Nagpaalam naman siya na sa mother na lang niya (He asked to be with his mother),” he said. “Ingatan n’yo, (Take care of him), Ambal waved as Luisito joined his friends and family. “Responsibility namin ‘yan.” (He is our responsibility.)

The human rights group Karapatan was happy over Luisito’s release.

“If not for the writ of amparo, his captors will not be forced to make him surface,” said Kelly Delgado, secretary-general of Karapatan in Southern Mindanao.

Delgado said that the human rights group will subject Luisito to a psycho-social therapy, because of the ordeal that he went through. He said that it was enough triumph for the human rights group that Luisito is still alive. Germelina Lacorte/davaotoday.com/posted by Bulatlat