Political Prisoners Fast Against Bush 

The bars around him did not prevent political prisoner Donato Continente from joining the protest against U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit. And why not? According to human rights groups, it’s the U.S. that has been the biggest obstacle to Continente’s release.

BY DABET CASTAŃEDA
Bulatlat.com

Donato Continente was implicated in the killing of American Col. James Rowe of the Joint US-RP Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) on April 21, 1989 and his driver. He was slapped with murder and frustrated murder charges and meted life imprisonment on Feb. 27, 1991.  Unmindful of his ulcer, Continente went on a five-day fast Oct. 13-18, to show his disgust over Bush’s visit. He was joined by the 14 other political prisoners at the Maximum Security Compound of the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa where Continente is confined.  Who is Donato Continente? Continente was an organizer for the youth group KADENA (Kabataan para sa Demokrasya at Nasyunalismo or Youth for Democracy and Nationalism) and a staff of the Philippine Collegian, the official publication of the state-owned University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. Although the communist New People’s Army (NPA) already claimed responsibility for the Rowe assassination, Continente was forced to admit to the killing after a series of physical and psychological torture by agents of the Criminal Investigation Service (CIS).

Continente with child

“As soon as I was arrested, I was alternately slapped and punched until I lost my dentures. When we reached the CIS, I was stripped of my clothes and my captors struck my testicles and rubbed my anus with pepper,” he agonizingly remembers. 

When he showed he could take the physical torture, his captors put up another gruesome torture that involved his family. A month after his arrest, burly men accosted his younger brother Romulo as he was boarding a bus in Quezon City. In the ensuing commotion, Romulo was able to break free from the men, leap out of the bus but hit his head on the pavement. He died instantly. He was a 17-year-old college freshman. 

Continente was told of his brother’s death by his captors and warned that other members of his family would suffer the same fate if he would not admit to the Rowe killing. 

“Nung sinabi nila yun, kulang na lang pati pagpatay kay Rizal akuin ko na (When they said that, I would have admitted even to the killing of Rizal),” he says.

His sufferings, however, did not end there. For almost two months in the custody of the CIS, he would frequently be tortured and forced to admit other crimes or testify against other political prisoners.  At times, said Continente, CIS agents would torture him simply “for fun.” 

Continente has a four-year old son, Jolo, whom his wife, Imelda, is bringing up on her own.

The American intervention

Continente should have however been released in 1992 if not for the intervention of the U.S. government.

U.S. Embassy officials reportedly warned Philippine officials of dire consequences for U.S.-RP relations should Continente be granted amnesty. 

According to the human rights group KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights), an American official called on President Macapagal-Arroyo on March 28, 2001 to exclude Continente from the list of political prisoners she was planning to pardon as a goodwill measure in the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. 

Former US Ambassador to the Philippines Thomas Hubbard also personally went to Arroyo and reiterated the same order from the White House.

Continente commented that “the Philippine government is not just willing to protect U.S. economic interest but also its ego.  Nobody wants to take the cudgels of releasing the alleged killer of a US military man.” 

Barring any further American meddling, Continente should be released by May 23, 2005, the expiration of his maximum sentence. He could have been released though as early as Oct. 8, 2001, when his minimum sentence expired.

The 5-day fast ended on the evening of Oct. 18, at the same time that Macapagal-Arroyo was entertaining Bush with a lavish banquet. As Bush’s party left Manila, political prisoners lay down on their cots in their cold cells to sleep, with empty stomachs. Bulatlat.com

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