Double Standards

Cielo Buan and Evangeline Pitao were both separated from their husbands by the ongoing armed conflict. The husband of one is held by the New People’s Army (NPA) and of the other’s by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)—but the difference goes much deeper than this.

By Lira Dalangin

Cielo Buan and Evangeline Pitao share the same fate of having been separated from their husband due to the ongoing armed conflict. Buan’s husband, Army intelligence Major Noel Buan, has been a prisoner of war of the New People's Army (NPA) since July 1999. Evangeline’s husband, Mindanao NPA commander Leoncio Pitao, has been in military custody since his capture in November 1999.

But while sharing a common plight, Cielo and Vangie are a picture of contrast.

While people may keep wondering what Maj. Buan is like, they've become all too familiar with Cielo who has hugged the limelight with her thespian display of tearjerker interviews in radio and television. Her incessant pleas for the safe release of her husband rouse sympathy for her as the wife deprived of the tender loving care of a husband who now lives in captivity with the Marxist guerrillas.

Vangie, on the other hand, during press conferences and interviews, begins her narrative with how grateful she and local human rights groups are to the donors of her boat fare and allowance to get to Manila. Coming from Davao, Vangie's visits to her husband, who's now detained at the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) in Camp Aguinaldo, depend only on contributions raised from friends and supporters.

Vangie's agony is rarely expressed in tears and shrieks. In her plain words and native accent there is depth and intensity. Vangie would tell how Mindanaoans regard her husband as a brave and sincere leader, and to her and her children a loving husband and father. Once, she wrote a letter of appeal to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, pleading for the release of her husband. But all these seem to fall on deaf ears as Pitao remains in jail.

While Cielo may be counting the days to her reunion with her husband who is due for release on April 6, Vangie has yet to see a glimpse of hope for her husband's freedom.

"Right now, Major Buan's family must be feeling a sense of jubilation because of his pending release,” says Evangeline. "I envy them."

She considers this a special event to look forward to and volunteered to be present when the army officer is released. "I want to see how happy Maj. Buan's wife and daughter are when they are reunited. I wish that the day would come when our family would experience the same happy event," she says.

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has ordered the release of Buan, captured in Lucena, Quezon, as a goodwill measure for the resumption of the peace negotiations between the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) on April 27.

In return, human rights organizations are calling for the freedom of Pitao, Donato Continente, alleged killer of U.S. Army Col. James Rowe, church worker Lorna Rivera-Baba, and other political prisoners in the country.

Soon after taking her oath of office, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo promised the release of 73 out of 250 political prisoners. To date, only 42 have been granted freedom because of delays in the processing of their release papers. But Pitao, Rivera-Baba, and Continente are not among the detainees to be freed.

Pitao, also allegedly known as Kumander Parago Sandoval of the NPA's Merardo Arce Command in Mindanao, is considered a big catch by the military following his involvement in the kidnapping of Gen.Victor Obillo and Capt. Eduardo Montealto in 1999. It was also Pitao who facilitated the army officials' safe release.

In November 1999, Pitao was captured in Davao City by the military and has since remained in the custody of the ISAFP. Instead of being charged with political crimes, however, the NPA leader is being accused of 17 criminal cases ranging from murder, kidnapping, arson, robbery, and other felonies before nine different branches of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

All of Evangeline's pleas to the President for her husband's release remain unanswered. Coming all the way from Davao to join the Kalbaryo ng Mga Bilanggong Pulitikal, a press conference cum Lenten program depicting the travails of the political prisoners languishing in jails held on April 3, she laments the agonizing experience that she and her four children suffer in the face of her husband's uncertain condition in military custody.

She tells how all her son asked for during his graduation last month was for his father to see him on stage receiving his diploma. "It never happened, of course, because my husband is still in jail," she says.

Evangeline says she wished she could just bring her son, Ryan, to Manila to see his father, but financial constraints prevent the trip. It was only in the latter part of 2000 when Evangeline began seeing her husband regularly. After his capture, the ISAFP ordered a ban on visitors for Pitao, including his family as well as human rights groups.

Due to the unhealthy conditions in the ISAFP detention cell, Evangeline said her husband has been experiencing difficulties in walking and has contracted urinary tract infection.

Ed Hortillano, spokesperson for the political detainees at the New Bilibid Prisons, says that while people reflect on the sufferings of Christ during the Lenten season, they should also think about the continuous sufferings of the political detainees languishing in jails because of their political beliefs.  #