HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCH
Families Long for Missing Relatives
The
more the human rights community assails and protests human rights
violations, particularly the killings and enforced disappearances, the
more the perpetrators are emboldened to commit them.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
OBLIVIOUS TO ATROCITY: Twins Budana and
Betita Bumatay, barely three months old, await sleep tranquilly –
completely unaware that their mother, 32-year-old Josephine Nogoy, had
been snatched by soldiers weeks ago.
PHOTO BY DABET CASTAÑEDA |
SAN JOSE, Tarlac –
Twins Budana and Betita Bumatay are barely three months old. The elder
Budana plays with her fingers while she lays down on a papag (a bed
made of bamboo) while the younger Betita is fast asleep in a swing made of
cheesecloth. Like other kids in the village, the twins are made to rest
under the trees just in front of the house to avoid the scorching heat of
the sun, especially during summer.
But unlike normal
kids their age, the twins are taken care of not by their mother but only
by their aunts. This has been the case since early morning of March 27
when eight burly armed men took their mother, 32-year-old Josephine Nogoy,
away.
|
At around 1 a.m. of
March 27, eight unidentified men, armed with rifles and wearing black
long-sleeved shirts, gloves, ski-masks and combat boots, barged into the
house of Nogoy’s sister-in-law Divina Guevarra. Nogoy and her twins have
been staying at the Guevarra house in Barangay Iba, this town, since
January, a week after Nogoy gave birth by caesarian operation on January
16. “Tinutulungan namin siya mag-alaga ng mga kambal kasi operada siya
(We are helping her take care of the twins since she just went through an
operation),” Guevarra explained.
Guevarra said five of
the armed men held her and her family at gunpoint while the three others
barged into the room of Nogoy and the twins. “Kadua, eto na! (Kadua,
here it is now!)” Guevarra heared one of the armed men saying, referring
to Nogoy.
The three men then
dragged the nursing mother outside the room. “Aray (Ouch),” Guevarra heard
Nogoy saying. “Ate, si Betita walang kasama sa kuwarto (Elder
sister, Betita does not have anybody with her inside the room)” were the
last words Guevarra heard from Nogoy before the latter was forced inside a
waiting van.
Nogoy, a native of
Capas town, also in Tarlac, and her husband, Tirso Bumatay, have been
tagged by the police as New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas, Iba Barangay
Secretary Patrocinio Basco said.
“Wala akong
ebidensya pero sa paniwala ko, mga sundalo ang kumuha doon sa babae (I
do not have evidence but I believe that the soldiers took the woman),”
Basco said. “Kung may kasalanan sa batas, sana kinasuhan na lang nila
sa korte. Mahirap yung ginawa nila, kawawa yung mga bata (If she
violated the law, she should have just been charged in court. What they
did was detrimental to the children.),” Basco added.
Relatives’ efforts to
find Nogoy in detention centers and military camps have been futile.
16 abductions
Nogoy is just one of
16 individuals who have been abducted since January, records from the
human rights group Desaparecidos (Families of the Desaparecidos for
Justice) show. (See Table 1) Two of those abducted have turned up dead.
Like Nogoy, five of
those abducted were women. The latest victim who has fallen prey to the
death squad operations is Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado, a member of the Panay
chapter of Society of Ex-Detainees against Detention and for Amnesty (SELDA).
Posa-Dominado, a
political detainee in the 1980s, was abducted together with Nilo Arado, a
member of the Panay chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN, New
Patriotic Alliance), at around 10 p.m. of April 12 while traveling in Oton
town, province of Iloilo. They were taken by the same unidentified armed
men who shot their companion, Jose Ely Garachico, secretary general of the
Panay chapter of Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’
Rights).
As of press time,
Garachico, a 50-year-old human rights worker since martial law, is
receiving medical attention at the intensive care unit of a local
hospital.
Table 1
List of Victims of Abduction
January-April 2007 |
Name of Victim |
Date of Abduction |
Place of Incident |
Suspected
Perpetrator |
1-2. Gloria Pabillon,
40 and Mary Joy Opo, 17 |
|
|
19th IB PA, Albuera
town, Leyte |
3-4. Spouses
Florentino and Betty Branzuela |
Jan. 19 |
Brgy. Estaka,
Dipolog City,
Zamboanga del Norte |
|
5. Felicidad
Katalbas, 53, an NGO worker |
Jan 25 |
Kabankalan town
proper, Negros Occidental |
|
6. Leo Velasco, NDF
consultant |
Feb. 19 |
Cagayan de Oro |
|
7. Romualdo Balbuena,
55, a farmer |
Feb. 25 |
Quinapondan, Eastern
Samar |
|
8. Abner L. Hizarsa,
55, former political detainee |
March
22 |
Barangay Ilwas,
Subic, Zambales |
soldiers of the 24th
IB PA |
9. Josephine Nogoy,
32, |
March 27 |
Barangay Iba, San
Jose, Tarlac |
|
10. Villamor Adona,
63, |
March 27 |
Barangay San
Isidro, Sta. Ana, Pampanga |
|
11. Lourdes Rubrico,
62, local leader of the urban poor group Kadamay, and barangay
coordinator of Bayan Muna in Damariñas, Cavite |
April 3 |
Dasmariñas, Cavite |
|
12. Leonardo Cabeles,
a farmer |
April 3 |
Barangay AltaVista,
San Felipe town, Masbate |
|
13-14. Arthuro
Orpilla and Dionisio Battad, leaders of the peasant group Kagimungan
in Cagayan province |
March 27 |
found dead in the
Cagayan
River under the Magapit Bridge in Lallo town on March 28 and April
3, respectively |
|
15-16. Ma. Luisa
Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado |
April 12 |
Oton, Iloilo |
|
Source: Desaparecidos
In the morning of
April 12, a coordinator of Kabataan Partylist was abducted in Lapu-Lapu
town, Cebu City. Beethoven Avila, 28, was accosted by unidentified men. He
was missing until his wife Beverly and human rights workers found him
detained in Camp Sergio Osmeña in Cebu City. It was later learned that
agents of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(ISAFP) abducted Avila. The victim was, however, released morning of April
14.
Indiscriminate
Victims of abductions
and enforced disappearances are not just activists and suspected
guerillas. They also include those who have been “inactive” in the
people’s movement or those who have decided to live a quiet life and have
been forced to be sidelined because of illnesses.
Such was the case of
Abner Hizarsa, 55, a native of Makati City.
In an interview with
his wife Cris, 47, she said that Hizarsa was riding a tri-bike and was on
his way to the Ilwas Elementary School to ferry lunch for his 10-year-old
daughter, Shara, when two unidentified men alighted from a white L-300 van
and accosted the victim.
A witness whose name
is withheld for security reasons said that at about 10:30 am on March 22
the same van was parked in front of a bakery a few meters from the Hizarsa
home.
Another witness whose
identity is also withheld said one of the two men who forced Hizarsa into
the van was wearing fatigue.
When Cris learned of
the abduction, she immediately went to the military detachment in their
village to look for her husband. “Walang ibang kukuha sa kanya kundi
mga sundalo (No one else would take him except the soldiers),” Cris
said. She is worried about her husband’s condition given his heart
ailment.
On March 19, soldiers
from the 24th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IB PA)
have encamped inside the Ilwas village hall and have made it their
temporary detachment.
Witnesses told
Bulatlat that a certain Lt. Col Felipe Anotado, 24th IB
commander, had allegedly told residents that the soldiers would ask
“suspected” residents to “surrender” and, in turn, would be given
livelihood projects.
Four-time detainee
Hizarsa has been
arrested and detained four times since martial law. His abduction on March
22 was his fifth.
His first arrest was
in 1978 where he was detained for a few months in Camp Olivas in Pampanga.
He was again arrested and detained for five years at the PC-INP Detention
Center in Makinayan, Olongapo City. He escaped sometime in 1985 and went
underground. He resurfaced as the spokesperson for the communist-led
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) – Bataan local chapter
during the peace talks with the Aquino government in 1986.
As peace talks did
not prosper after the massacre of 13 farmers during a rally in Mendiola on
Jan. 22, 1987, Hizarsa again went underground but was arrested again in
Oct. 1989. He was detained until December of the same year and again
escaped his captors.
In 1992, Hizarsa was
again arrested and was detained at the Bulacan Provincial Jail until he
was released on bail in 1993.
It was in 1995 that
doctors detected complications in his heart and he was advised to slow
down. In 2000, Hizarsa and his family decided to settle in Subic, province
of Zambales, where they survived with meager earnings from a sari-sari
(variety) store.
As it turns out,
there has been a standing warrant of arrest against Hizarsa and five
others since May 31, 2000. The six individuals were charged with
“frustrated murder with direct assault upon an agent of a person in
authority” and were allowed to pay a P200,000 ($4,174.93, based on an
exchange rate of P47.905 per US dollar) bail.
It was only on March
22, a few hours after Hizarsa was abducted, that his family learned there
was a standing warrant against him.
"The continuing executions
and abductions show that it is more than business as usual for state
forces, they are doing the business
more briskly and with more impunity. We also note with alarm that the
perpetrators are resorting more to abductions and disappearances now that
extrajudicial killings have been condemned,” Jigs Clamor, Karapatan deputy
secretary general said. "It is as if the more the human rights community
assails and protests these dastardly acts, the more the perpetrators are
emboldened to commit them.” Bulatlat
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