3 of Tagaytay 5 File Damage Claims vs Police, Navy

Published on November 29, 2008

Three of the former political detainees known as the Tagaytay 5 have filed damage claims against elements of the Police Regional Office in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) and the Philippine Navy before the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat

The Tagaytay 5 are Axel Pinpin, a consultant of the Kalipunan ng mga Magsasaka sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka or Farmers’ Confederation 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-based cockfighting aficionados Enrico Ybañez and Michael Masayes.

They were charged with rebellion in 2006 for allegedly conspiring with “dissident soldiers” in a supposed plot to destabilize the Arroyo administration.

The five were abducted by a composite team of Philippine Navy and Philippine National Police (PNP) elements 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 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.

Last Aug. 28, they were released on the strength of a court order issued by Judge Erwin Larida, Jr. of the Tagaytay City RTC (Regional Trial Court), Branch 18.

“We are pursuing this course of action as part of our continuing quest for justice, even if a competent court had already acquitted us last Aug. 20 and ordered our subsequent release last Aug. 28,” said Custodio, Pinpin, and Sarmiento in a Nov. 28 statement sent to the media. “Despite our acquittal, justice was only partially dispensed and the perpetrators of the human rights violations done to us are still on a witch-hunting binge in the Southern Tagalog region.”

“Whatever token amount the government may allot as compensation or ‘financial assistance’ to victims of human rights violations, like the Tagaytay 5 can never assuage the physical pain, psychological terror and hardships that we suffered, along with our families and supporters, from the hands of our abductors, accusers, tormentors and torturers,” said Custodio, Pinpin, and Sarmiento. “No amount of compensation can ever replace our yearning for justice; and no amount of damage claims can ever repay our lost time, opportunities and tarnished reputations, unless and until the perpetrators are put before the bar of justice.”

The three said that by filing the charges, they seek to contribute to “the people’s demand to put an end to the culture of impunity and state of denial which pervade the regime’s police and armed forces and the prosecution service in their systematic persecution of political opposition and legitimate dissent in this country.”

Custodio, Pinpin, and Sarmiento said that the filing of the damage claims is a first step in “another long and tortuous process” of finding what they described as an “elusive” justice.

They said they were inspired by their acquittal and by the CHR ruling that there were human rights violations in the Tagaytay 5 case. (Bulatlat.com)