AFP Dared: Open Fort Magsaysay and other camps to families of desaparecidos, independent body

Press Release
By DESAPARECIDOS
November 23, 2006

QUEZON CITY, Philippines  –  Families of victims of enforced disappearance and their lawyer today dared the Armed Forces of the Philippines to prove they are not holding people incomunicado by opening military camps to searching families. “Let an independent, investigative body, with representatives of all victims, and members of international human rights bodies be convened and impanelled.  Along with Oscar Leuterio, let them be allowed to go to Fort Magsaysay and all other military camps,” said Lawyer Rex Fernandez, counsel for the families of Desaparecidos. “We demand that these camps be searched with a fine-tooth comb.”

Meanwhile, Ghay Portajada, spokesperson of the Families of Desaparecidos for Justice (DESAPARECIDOS) cited that two missing youths in Pampanga were seen at the headquarters of the 69th Infantry Battalion in San Jose Matulid village, in Mexico, Pampanga.

Nothern Luzon Command (Nolcom) chief Lt. Gen. Bonifacio Ramos said in a newspaper interview that the testimony of former security guard Oscar Leuterio was a lie.  Leuterio is the latest witness in the petition for habeas corpus for missing UP students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño, whom he saw at a safehouse inside Fort Magsaysay.

In his sworn statement he said he was robbed April 17 in Doña Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan by soldiers and CAFGU, abducted and held incomunicado for five months at the 7th Infantry Division based in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.

In his written statement, Leuterio identified then still active MajGen. Jovito Palparan as the one called “Lolo” (Grandfather) by soldiers, who told him we would live if he cooperated with them. Leuterio was released by the military on September 14 after he promised to work with them.

Leuterio said that he knew he was brought to Fort Magsaysay because that was where he came out when he was released on September.  Leuterio said he was told that it was MajGen. Juanito Gomez, chief of the 7th ID who drove the vehicle from Fort Magsaysay to Bulacan where he was dropped off.

Leuterio filed charges against Palparan, Gomez who replaced Palparan as commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Division, Lt. Noel Clement of the 703rd Infantry Brigade, 2Lt Ferdinand Basas, and several others identified as Alvin Pastrana, Boy Muslim, Bitoy, and Aladin who were among those who abducted and tortured him.

The criminal charges against the military men were filed at the Ombudsman while civil charges were filed at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.  The charges included warrantless arrest, arbitrary detention, torture, physical injuries, and involuntary servitude.

Fernandez said that at the Court of Appeals hearing on November 16, Leuterio was placed under cross examination.  “But his testimony was never impuned, his credibility stood. He was never broken.”  He said Leuterio’s testimony was strong, unlike that of Palparan who testified earlier but “always took cover in the guise of classified information.”  Palparan had denied having the two UP students in custody.

Portajada said that Leuterio’s account proves that the military men are lying under oath as they claimed that Cadapan and Empeño were not in their custody.  She said this also proves that the state security forces are the perpetrators of abductions of the more than 180 victims of enforced disappearances.

“Not only Fort Magsaysay, Camp Tecson and other military camps, but also safehouses and torture houses should be opened so that the disappeared will be surfaced,” Portajada said.

Portajada said the families of missing youths Romulos Robiños, 24 and Ryan Supan, 20 were the latest to file petitions for writ of habeas corpus at the Supreme Court.  The two were abducted by armed men believed to be soldiers past midnight on November 17 from their respective homes in Angeles City and San Fernando City.

Portajada said that armed men believed to be soldiers had earlier been looking for Robiños’ sister, Leni, a volunteer staff of the peasant group Aguman Dareng Maglalautang Campampangan.

Robiños’s wife Jesusa, 25, said she saw one of her husband’s abductors at the 69th Infantry Battalion in San Jose Matulid, Mexico where they went to look for Romulos.  An official at the headquarters had told them that the two were not in their custody.

The Robiños and Supan families will today file a complaint at the Commission on Human Rights and the Joint Secretariat of the Joint Monitoring Committee for the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.