Whatever Happened to Two Companions of Melissa Roxas?

Published on June 30, 2009

Ghay Portajada, secretary-general of Desaperacidos, a group of relatives of victims of enforced disappearances, told Bulatlat that they respect the victims’ decision to keep silent. “We understand the trauma that they are suffering from and the fear of their families,” Portajada said.

“They are still afraid and that emotion is expected from the victims of abductions and torture,” she said. “The psychological impact of torture is worse than the physical.”

She said she still hopes that Carabeo and Jandoc will muster enough strength to come out and tell their side of story. “Telling their story will help them recover from their trauma,” Portajada said.

Red Baiting

In its initial report, the Tarlac Provincial Police Office claimed that Carabeo is a regular member of the NPA and has pending criminal cases. The same information about Carabeo is indicated in the report of the regional office of the police.

Karapatan legal counsel Rex Fernandez criticized the police for focusing on the profile of the victims instead of the perpetrators.

Sister Ruiz said it has been a practice of the state agents to tag victims of human rights violations as NPA members. “No firearms were found,” she pointed out. Sister Ruiz said that red baiting is part of the counter-insurgency program of the Arroyo administration.

Missing activist Jonas Burgos, as well as several others before, was also tagged by the military as a member of the NPA, reflecting what appears to be a standard operating procedure in the military when issues like this crop up, human-rights advocates say.

“Even if they are NPA members or Abu Sayyaf, unless they are engaged in a firefight, they are entitled to due process of law,” lawyer Jobert Pahilga, deputy secretary general for campaigns and advocacy of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), said in an interview.

Pahilga said that assuming for the sake of argument that Carabeo is an NPA, the state forces should have brought him to court and file rebellion charges against him. “All suspects should be presumed innocent until proven guilty,” he said.

Humane Treatment

In fact, under international humanitarian law and the rules of conflict, even combatants captured during conflict should be treated humanely.

“Tagging Carabeo as a rebel does not give authority to any one to harass or torture him,” he added. “His being an NPA, if this were true, is immaterial and irrelevant to the abduction and torture,” he said.

Pahilga said the tagging is part of the military’s diversionary tactic and consistent with the government’s claim that the abduction and torture was stage-managed. “They want to create conditions to cover up the truth,” he said.

He pointed out that most of the victims of enforced disappearances were also branded by state agents as NPA rebels or sympathizers. “What happened to Roxas, Carabeo and Jandoc is a manifestation of the continuing repression of vocal critics of the Arroyo government,” Pahilga said, noting the 2010 deadline set by the administration to end the three-decades old communist movement in the Philippines.

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