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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 24 July 29-August 4, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 24 July 29-August 4, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Human Rights Abuses Continue
to Hound Mindanaoans From Basilan to Davao del Norte, the military
is leaving a bloody trail of human-rights violations that have raised the
hackles of human-rights groups. The methods are classic, even Marcosian, and the
effects are harrowing. And the AFP is still using that same, old line: “We are
fighting a vicious war,” By CARLOS H. CONDE DAVAO CITY -- The abduction of Narita Day, 42, mother of two, was straight out of a case file during the dark days of martial law or the “total war policy” of the Aquino regime. The men came knocking at 7 in the evening of July 24, while Narita and her sister’s family were watching television in the latter’s home in Purok 5, Apokon, Tagum City. There were around five of them, in civilian clothes, one of them had his face covered with a handkerchief. They came on board a Tamaraw FX with plates MKX 147 and introduced themselves as soldiers; the leader said his name was Capt. Burgos. Narita was in the kitchen when two of the men barged inside the house. There, she was nabbed and handcuffed. The men said they had a warrant and promptly showed it to Narita and her sister Febes, who later told the human rights group Karapatan, that it was not an original copy, that it had no signature from a judge and that written on it was Marita Dy, not Narita Day. The case written on the paper was murder, allegedly carried out by Narita as a member of the New People’s Army (NPA). A Karapatan factsheet narrates what happened next: “Narita asked that she be allowed to change clothes. The request was granted but she was accompanied by one of the men inside her room. Narita’s personal belongings were searched by the men. Febes asked them what they were looking for and was told they were looking for a gun. They did not find any gun and found Narita’s wallet instead. One of the men took the P500 bill inside the wallet but returned it after he was caught by Febes. Some documents and a cellular phone were seized.” Febes was not allowed to accompany her sister wherever it was that she would be taken to. Capt. Burgos said Narita would be brought to Pantukan, a town in Compostela Valley. Later, Karapatan checked at the Pantukan police station but Narita was not there. The cops in the station also didn’t know any Capt. Burgos. Three days after she was abducted, Narita’s whereabouts was determined: she had been brought to Camp Catitipan ,the Philippine National Police regional headquarters in this city. She was released only on Saturday, July 28. Illegal, Questionable Methods Narita’s case was just the latest of
a series of incidents that indicate the military’s and the police’s
continued use of illegal or questionable methods to crack down on so-called
enemies of the state, according to Karapatan Southern Mindanao secretary-general
Joel Virador. More often, he told Col. Eduardo del Rosario, commanding
officer of the 73rd IB, said the seven were arrested after a teenage NPA
guerrilla the Army had earlier arrested fingered them as NPA supporters. Del
Rosario said the seven were NPA militias tasked to buy supplies for the
Communists. He said the seven After Karapatan interceded, the seven were released two days after their arrests. They later revealed in a press conference called by the human-rights group the torture they allegedly went through that forced them to admit to being NPA supporters. Bullets Between Fingers Umbus, for example, said that the soldiers lodged M-14 bullets between his fingers, which were then gripped so hard Umbus cried out in pain. (This form of torture ranks as among the most commonly used in the history of human-rights abuses in the Philippines according to human-rights workers.) When the soldiers pushed Umbus into a deep hole in the ground and was told that he would be buried alive if he didn’t admit that he was an NPA “militia,” Umbus didn’t have a choice. Mansiluluy, meanwhile, was forced to admit that he was an NPA militia when the soldiers threatened to scorch his face with a flat iron. “For fear of that hot flat iron, I told them ‘Yes I was an NPA militia’,” Mansiluluy told reporters here. Asian was punched several times in the chest and head. The clincher, however, was when two soldiers grabbed him by the throat, choking him and forcing him to admit to the accusation. The other four victims, according to Karapatan, complained of similar abuses. On July 22, the seven filed charges against the 73rd IB before the Commission on Human Rights. They also asked the soldiers to return the belongings looted from them and demanded indemnification. But Del Rosario of the 73rd IB denied that soldiers tortured the victims into confession. He instead accused the NPA of “coaching” the seven Ata-Matigsalogs into manufacturing the torture accusations “to score propaganda points” against the military. He reiterated that the seven were members of the NPA’s “armed militias” and that procuring supplies for the guerrillas was one of their tasks. “But we released all seven of them to Karapatan after interviewing them unharmed. Karapatan representatives even signed a statement attesting that the soldiers did not harm them,” Del Rosario said. Del Rosario said the military decided not to file charges against the seven “because we view them as victims and it is important that we win them over rather than prosecute them.” And to counter the publicity against the military in the wake of the charges, the military revealed last week that it has dug up the grave of a former NPA guerrilla who was allegedly killed by Leoncio Pitao, also known as Ka Parago, in 1998 for allegedly spying for the military. Payot, the leader of the Merardo Arce Command of the NPA in Southern Mindanao, has since been arrested and now languishes in jail in Camp Aguinaldo. Same Pattern Karapatan’s Virador said the tortures in Southern Mindanao are consistent with the abuses allegedly committed by the military against suspected Abu Sayyaf members in Basilan and Sulu. “The pattern is the same, he said. Virador was referring to the arrests and alleged tortures of close to a hundred suspected Abu Sayyaf members in Basilan and Sulu the past weeks. The DOJ has filed cases of kidnapping and illegal possession of firearms against 40 of them. Many of those arrested complained of
torture that forced them to admit they were Abu Sayyaf members. One of those
allegedly tortured cried on TV: “If you went through what I went through, you
will admit to anything.” He complained that soldiers put pepper in his anus
and rubbed it on different The Commission on Human Rights in Region 9 has determined that, indeed, human-rights abuses have been committed in Basilan and Sulu. But instead of answering the charges,
AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Edilberto Adan stopped short of justifying the
tortures, saying “We are fighting a war, a vicious war” and that the Abu
Sayyaf is “evil.” He added that the military has been put on the
“defensive” in its drive against the Abu Sayyaf Virador took the AFP to task for this
line of reasoning. “Those are suspects. They should be presumed innocent until
proven otherwise. They should be subjected to due process, which means, among
others, no torture. No amount of abuses by the Abu Sayyaf can justify the
torture of people who, considering the sometimes poor intelligence gathering of
the military, may not be involved with the Abu Sayyaf. If they are so convinced
of the guilt of those people, why not file charges against them directly? Why
extract confessions from them through torture if the military is so sure of
their By torturing suspects, Virador said, the military becomes “the best recruiter of the Abu Sayyaf. In fact, they are no better than the Abu Sayyaf.” Virador said he expects more of these abuses in Basilan and Sulu now that the Arroyo administration has practically blamed the Abu Sayyaf for the poor economic performance of the country. “Instead of blaming the wrong economic policies that the government has been implementing, the President is blaming the Abu Sayyaf. This emboldens the military to take liberties with human rights,” Virador said. With reports from JOWEL F. CANUDAY (Part Two: Government Projects to Worsen Human Rights Situation in Mindanao)
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