UP Studes, Teachers Demand Release of Abducted Students

BY JHONG DELA CRUZ
Posted 5:12 p.m., June 30, 2006

The University of the Philippines Student Council (UPSC), the UP-Congress of Teachers for Nationalism and Democracy (Contend), and the League of Filipino Students (LFS) held a press conference, 10:30 a.m. today at the Palma Hall of UP Diliman to condemn the abduction of two UP students last Monday, June 26, in Bulacan (52 kms from Manila). They also demanded that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) immediately release the two students and their farmer companion. 

The abduction occurred after government pronouncements of the transfer of 1,500 military troops from Mindanao to Luzon and the recall of 3,000 troops from security detail for deployment to critical areas.  

In an earlier report, posted June 28, the three were identified as members of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Bulakan (AMB or Peasant Alliance of Bulacan).  

The two UP students are Karen Empeño, 23, and Sherlyn Cadapan, 25. Empeno is a graduating Sociology student of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and a member of the League of Filipino Students. When she was abducted, Empeno was conducting a research on the farmer’s situation in Hagonoy to complete her thesis this semester. 

Cadapan is a triathlete from the College of Human Kinetics and a college representative to the Student Council. She was doing community organizing for Anakbayan (Sons and Daughters of the People), a militant youth group, at the time of the abduction. 

The two students were abducted together with Manuel Merino, 56, a local farmer. The three were forcibly taken from the house where they were staying by six heavily armed men wearing black ski masks. 

UP students and teachers reiterated the accusation of the Alyansa ng Mamamayan para sa Pantaong Karapatan, (ALMMA, or People’s Alliance for Human Rights) that soldiers from the 71^st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army were the perpetrators of the abduction.  

UP council chair Paolo Alfonso told Bulatlat, “No other group has a motive to abduct the three but the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Central Luzon, under the command of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan.” 

“We hold the military and the Arroyo regime responsible for this violation,” he added. 

Roland Tolentino, chair of UP-Contend said in a statement, “(This abduction) makes atrocious the human rights record of Arroyo…and an encroachment on U.P. of her fascist rule.”  

He said the abduction is “tantamount to the breakdown of liberal education.” 

On June 17, President Arroyo ordered the release of a P1 billion fund to augment the counter-insurgency drive against the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed-wing the New People’s Army. 

The declaration followed the deployment of battalions of soldiers from Mindanao to regions which the AFP believes to be hotbeds of the NPA, including Central Luzon. Bulatlat