Abductions: A Shift from Killings – Youth Groups

BY JHONG DELA CRUZ
Posted 1:35 p.m. July 4, 2006 

Militant youth groups note that forced disappearances have replaced killings as tactic on counter-insurgency as shown by the spate of abductions mostly in Central Luzon.

Youth groups belonging to Youth Dare (Youth Demanding Arroyo’s Removal) cited the case of Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan who remain missing eight days after they were abducted in Hagonoy town in Bulacan province on June 26.

Dion Carlo Cerrafon, chair of the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines (SCMP) said, “from extra-judicial killings, perpetrators believed to be agents of the military has shifted to a more terrifying move to silence government critics.”

Empeño, 23 and Cadapan, 25, were abducted with a local farmer Manuel Merino, 56, in San Miguel village, Hagonoy town, Bulacan by armed men suspected to be soldiers of the 71^st Infantry Battalion.  Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, chief of the 7^th Infantry Division in Central Luzon claimed the three were members of the New People’s Army (NPA).

Empeño, a graduating Sociology student of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and a member of the League of Filipino Students, has been conducting a research on the farmer’s plight in Hagonoy to finish her thesis this semester. Cadapan, a triathlete from the College of Human Kinetics, is two-month pregnant at the time of their abduction.

SCMP noted at least 10 individuals who went missing last week. There have been 178 cases of abductions since Arroyo was installed in 2001, noted SCMP.

The youth groups have launched a signature drive in the University of the Philippines in support of their calls for the military to surface the two students.

Eleanor de Guzman, chair of Anakbayan, cringed at Palparan’s pronouncement confirming that he has instructed “saturation campaign” in known NPA hotbeds in Bulacan.

Vencer Crisostomo of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) said, “It’s an act of cowardice for the army troops against legal and unarmed civilians…forced disappearances is more painful for the families who do not know what had happened to their loved ones.”

The groups also declared the youth’s “all out war” against the Arroyo government, who has been besieged since the announcement of an intensified anti-insurgency drive, following the release of P1 billion to finish off the Communist Party of the Philippines and armed wing NPA in two years.

The groups will today light candles along Katipunan Avenue, Taft Avenue and E. Rodriguez to denounce the abductions.

“Palparan has turned Mindoro into a killing field, Samar into ghost town…now he is wreaking havoc in Bulacan and Central Luzon. If there is someone that the townsfolk would wish were gone, it’s Palparan and his army and not Karen and Sherlyn,” de Guzman said.

The abductions increased 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. Bulatlat