BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Posted 9:35 a.m., July 8, 2008

The five political prisoners known as the Tagaytay 5 have protested the postponement of their first bail hearing, which was scheduled on July 4.

They described the postponement as a “deliberate dilatory tactic of the City Prosecutor with the conspicuous advice of the PNP (Philippine National Police) lawyer.” The postponement took place despite an explicit order from no less than Judge Erwin Larida Jr. of the Tagaytay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 18 to “give utmost priority to this case.”

The Tagaytay 5 are Axel Pinpin, a consultant of the Kalipunan ng mga Magsasaka sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka or Association of Peasants in Cavite) and a poet who was a fellow in the 1999 University of the Philippines (UP) National Writers’ Workshop; Riel Custodio, a Kamagsasaka-Ka member; Aristides Sarmiento, a freelance researcher for various non-government organizations; and Tagaytay City residents Enrico Ybañez and Michael Masayes.

They are facing rebellion charges filed in 2006 for allegedly conspiring with “dissident soldiers” in a supposed plot to destabilize the Arroyo administration.

The five were abducted by a composite Philippine Navy and Philippine National Police (PNP) team on April 28, 2006 in Tagaytay City.

Pinpin, Custodio and Sarmiento had just come from a meeting with coffee farmers in the city and were on their way to Manila for the forthcoming Labor Day rally. They had hired Ybañez as their driver while Masayes accompanied Ybañez.

Three days after, they were presented to the media as “communist rebels” who were conspiring with “dissident soldiers” in an alleged plot to “destabilize” the Arroyo administration. They were subsequently charged with rebellion.

Following an investigation, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has recently ruled that their arrest and detention were unlawful.

In a statement received by Bulatlat today, Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento said that at around 9:30 a.m. on July 4, the prosecution stated before the court that they are ready with their witnesses, after which Larida ordered that the hearing proceed at 1:30 p.m. that same day. They were informed at around 11:30, however, that the hearing was to be postponed.

“It becomes too obvious then that the City Prosecutor’s assertion of preparedness for the said hearing was just a facade to conceal the fact that they need more time to scrounge for more witnesses and manufacture credible evidences so as to win a conviction, which they failed to achieve after two years and two months of preparation for this legal offensive,” said Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento.

They said it was “outrageous” that they “prepared assiduously” for what was to be their “day in court” only to be derailed on the very first engagement.

“We can only suspect that there are more powerful, more ‘knowledgeable’ and more interested forces that are surreptitiously operating to railroad the conviction of the poor, deprived and innocent prisoners,” said Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento. “That in order to win this conviction, they need to coach more their witnesses – about the rehashed lies, rehearsed ‘truths,’ scripted half-truths and half-lies.”(Bulatlat.com)

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