On April 28, 2006, the writer Axel Alejandro Pinpin and four companions were abducted in Sungay village, Tagaytay City, by the Philippine National Police and charged with rebellion.
Pinpin’s companions, researchers Aristedes Sarmiento and Riel Custodio, together with local residents Enrico Ybañez and Michael Masayes, were on the way to attend Labor Day commemoration events in Cavite and Quezon. All were tortured, held incommunicado for a week, all their personal property confiscated by the police. They are now detained at Camp Vicente Lim, Canlubang, Laguna. They have been padlocked for over 100 days now in cells measuring 5 x 6 meters, with minimum ventilation and unhygienic regimen (Bulatlat, May 14-20; May 28-June 3, 2006, reports by Dennis Espada; Press Statement from Laura Sarmiento, Aug. 4, 2006).
Pinpin, a graduate of Cavite State University, was 1999 Fellow of the University of the Philippines Writers Workshop. Riel is an organizer for the Farmer’s Federation in Cavite.
Like most citizens critical of the Arroyo regime, Pinpin and his companions, now known as the “Tagaytay 5,” were accused of being members of the Communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) engaged in “destabilization plots.” Their experience falls into the well-documented pattern of State terrorism: harassment of Bayan Muna (People First) and other party-list activists (the most prominent is Rep. Crispin Beltran), warrantless arrests, kidnapping, “disappearances,” and extra-judicial killings by paramilitary death-squads and/or government troops.
