HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Suspected U.S.
Colonel Assassin Donato Continente:
Free At Last?
Twice his impending
release was blocked by the U.S. government. In June this year, he would
have served his maximum prison sentence but will the gates of freedom
finally open for political prisoner Donato Continente?
BY DABET CASTAŃEDA
Bulatlat
A political prisoner
– one of the alleged assassins of an American colonel in 1989 – expects to
be free in June from the National Bilibid Prison (NBP or national
penitentiary) after serving his maximum sentence.
WILL HE BE FREE THIS YEAR?
Political Prisoner Donato
Continente with son Jolo |
|
Juanito Leopando,
superintendent of the Bureau of Corrections (Bucor) told Bulatlat
last week that the prisoner, Donato Continente, 42, will definitely be
released on June 28 this year.
Silvestre Bello III
of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP)
also said that ordinarily any person who has served his or her sentence
should be released.
“There is no way to
legally hold a person as long as that person has served his sentence,”
said Bello, a former justice secretary. “Not even the complainant can
defer Continente’s release.”
He however said that
he is not in a position to say whether Continente will be released in
June.
Bello heads the
government panel holding peace talks with the National Democratic Front of
the Philippines (NDFP) which, in return, has been demanding the release of
Continente since his arrest in 1989.
Continente was set to
be released as early as 1992 when the Ramos government offered amnesty to
rebel detainees and again in 2001 when he had served his minimum sentence
of 12 years. Twice, however, his impending release was reportedly blocked
by the U.S. government.
Community organizer
Continente, a
community organizer for the youth group Kabataan para sa Demokrasya at
Nasyonalismo (Kadena or Youth for Democracy and Nationalism) and a staff
of the Philippine Collegian, the student publication of the University of
the Philippines in Diliman, was arrested on June 16, 1989 at the same
campus. He and co-accused Juanito Itaas were tagged as the assassins of
Col. James Nicholas Rowe, then chief of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory
Group (Jusmag).
Rowe, according to Bert De
Belder of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, was a decorated Vietnam war
veteran.
The Arlington National
Cemetery Website describes Rowe as an “American hero.” He graduated from
West Point in 1960 and served as a Special Forces Officer (Green Beret).
Captured by South Vietnamese communist guerrillas in 1963, he escaped five
years.
Rowe was placed in command of
the First Special Warfare Training Battalion at Fort Bragg in 1985. He
held that post until May 1989 when he was sent to the Philippines.
De Belder
wrote that as chief of the Jusmag in Manila, Rowe led a group who trained
the Philippine armed forces in counterinsurgency and worked with the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on a strategy to infiltrate the ranks of
the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed component, the
New People’s Army (NPA).
Rowe was
assasinated on April 21, 1989 at the corner of Tomas Morato and Timog Ave.
in Quezon City. He was the highest U.S. military officer killed in the
Philippines, a feat, De Belder wrote, “that the United States can hardly
stomach.”
The NPA owned up to
the killing of the American diplomat but this fact did not prevent the
arrest of Continente and Itaas.
Fall guys
In his court
testimonies, Continente said he was subjected to inhumane and unspeakable
physical and psychological torture.
Interviewed by
Bulatlat inside his prison cell last December, Continente said he was
forced to admit to the killing to stop the military from harassing his
family. He recalled that a month after his arrest, unidentified armed men
accosted his youngest brother, Romulo, while boarding a bus in Quezon
City. Romulo, a 17-year old college freshman, tried to escape but fell off
the bus and hit his head on the pavement. He died on the spot.
Later, Continente
said, his prison custodians warned him that his other family members would
suffer the same fate if he did not admit to the crime.
Continente and Itaas
were charged with murder and frustrated murder for the killing of Rowe and
the wounding of his driver, Joaquin Vinuya.
Both were found
guilty by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) and were sentenced to
life imprisonment (reclusion perpetua) plus a minimum of 10 years and one
day and a maximum of 17 years, four months and one day for the wounding of
Vinuya.
Itaas and Continente
appealed the RTC decision in 1993. The appealed decision of the RTC Branch
88 modified Continente’s case to that of an accomplice and reduced his
sentence from a minimum of 12 years to a maximum of 14 years and eight
months for the Rowe killing and a minimum of six months and a maximum of
two years and four months for the wounding of Rowe’s driver.
Itaas, on the other
hand, had his life sentence retained for the Rowe killing plus another six
years as minimum to nine years and six months as maximum for the Vinuya
case.
Continente,
therefore, had an aggregate sentence of 12 years and six months as minimum
and a maximum of 16 years.
U.S. intervention
Writing for the
February/March 1995 issue of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch, Ted Sampley said
that the U.S. government told the Philippine government on Jan. 25 that
“it remains opposed to the release from jail of the convicted killers of
Rowe.” Washington argued that the two “should not be freed under any
government amnesty program because they violated international law by
killing a diplomat.”
The NPA, in various
statements, said however that Rowe was meted out revolutionary justice for
his involvement in counterinsurgency operations.
The human rights
alliance Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) also
reported that on March 28, 2001,
an American official called on President Macapagal-Arroyo to exclude
Continente from the list of political prisoners she was planning to pardon
as goodwill measure in the renewed peace negotiations with NDFP.
Newspaper reports
also stated that former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Thomas Hubbard
also met President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to reiterate the same demand
from the White House.
Continente’s lawyer,
Edre Olalia of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC), said in an interview
with Bulatlat that persons entitled for parole or release upon the
expiration of the minimum sentence are those whose cases have been
reviewed by the Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP) for good conduct and
behavior.
Olalia said his
client’s good conduct records were submitted to the BPP for review in 2001
before his minimum sentence ended. No action was taken, he said.
The lawyer also said
that the Arroyo government has no legal basis not to release his client.
“Anything that would hamper or derail my client’s well-deserved release
would be suspicious and ridiculous,” he said.
It would be
tantamount to illegal detention if Continente will continue to be jailed
even after the lapse of his maximum sentence, he said. Bulatlat
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