Judge grants Temporary Protection Order to amparo petitioner vs. top CPP-NPA leaders

By CHITO D. DELA TORRE
March 27, 2008

BASEY, Samar  –  Judge Jovito C. Abarquez, presiding judge of Regional Trial Court Branch 30 here, has directed the 8th Infantry Division, Philippine Army to provide security to Dennis Gutierrez Gacuma, 19-year old son of Elizabeth Gutierrez  whose whereabouts remain unknown after her forcible abduction by New People’s Army in the late afternoon of October 24, 2007 in sitio Lanaga, Cancaiyas, an interior barrio of this town, barely four days before the barangay elections in which she won even in her absence.

The judge’s order is indicated in the court’s temporary protection order which Dennis petitioned for and was granted by judge Abarquez, the RTC being “inclined to believe that his life and safety is at stake”.

According to the order, the 8ID’s security on the person of Dennis will stay “until such time that the petitioner himself feels that he is already safe” from threats of all the 38 members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA whom he named as respondents in his petition for a writ of amparo.

Among the respondents in the case which the RTC designated as special proceedings no. 2008-63-664, are Jose Maria Sison, whom Dennis identified also as Amado Guerrero and chairman of the CPP-NPA, and 15 other top-brass CPP-NPA leaders from 3 barrios in Basey.

The security will continue until such threats have already “waned”.

The petition for the privilege of the writ of amparo was filed by Dennis himself on March 17, 2008.  It was received by the RTC Branch 30 at four o’clock in the afternoon of that day.

The temporary protection order is just one of four court orders which petitioner prayed for in his 15-long-bond-page petition.

Dennis has asked the court to direct respondents to cease and desist from hounding and harassing him and the immediate members of his family and surrender the “mortal remains” of his mother “so that she (could) be given the prescribed rites and a decent burial in consonance with her and her family’s religious beliefs and affiliation”, and to allow the court and petitioner to “have access and/or be given copies of pertinent documents, records, papers, photographs and other tangible things or objects which the respondents and/or their organization may have germane to the kidnapping and extra-judicial killing” of his mother.

He alleged that members of the Yunit Militia and the Sentro de Grabidad (SDG) of South Samar Front 2 (SSF2), Samar Provincial Party Committee (SSPC) of the CPP-NPA’s Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committees, appeared during the campaign rally in sitio Lanaga on Oct. 24, pointed their firearms at him and ordered him to drop to the ground and lie flat on his belly.

Rene Rodriguez, alias Bador, one of the NPA members, stepped on Dennis’ neck and took his cellular phone.  Rene next pointed a pistol at the chest of Dennis’ mother and pulled the gun’s trigger, but “for unknown reasons, however, the gun failed to discharge”.  Repeated the attempt two times more but “with the same inexplicable results”.

Dennis said in his petition that the NPA members “physically and mercilessly dragged” his mother away from the sitio plaza, at the same time training their guns on those attending her rally, threatening to shoot anybody who would come to her aid, and retreated towards the mountains, forcibly taking with them his mother.

An hour later, the NPA members returned to Lanaga looking for Dennis whom they also wanted to take with them.  However, the sitio people had earlier hidden Dennis and denied about his presence.