by Ronalyn V. Olea, Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Finally, the mysterious soldier who has been implicated by a witness in the abduction of the two University of the Philippines (UP) students has been named.

In today’s hearing, Provost Marshal Col. Herbert Yambing submitted to the Department of Justice (DOJ) panel the personal circumstances and assignments of Staff Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, one of the security escorts of retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr.

Osorio, who attended the hearing on July 19, was identified by Wilfred Ramos, one of the witnesses, as one of those who abducted Karen Empeño, Sherlyn Cadapan and Manuel Merino on June 26, 2006. In his supplemental affidavit, Ramos said the then unidentified soldier was the one who hogtied him and his father the day the two students and Merino were taken by some 20 armed men.

Erlinda Capadan and Concepcion Empeño, mothers of the two missing students, filed their amended complaint, naming Osorio as one of the accused in the criminal complaint they filed against Palparan and several other military officials.

Osorio is now assigned at the 24th Intelligence Service Unit of the Philippine Army based in Fort Bonifacio. He entered the Armed Forces of the Philippines in February 1987.

Possible cover-up?

Edre Olalia, one of the lawyers for the complainants, accepted the documents provided by Yambing but manifested that they are not admitting the veracity of all the information indicated there except the name and serial number of Osorio.

Based on the documents, Osorio was at the Army Personnel Management Center (APMC) from May 2005 to July 2006 and was sent as a member of the Philippine contingent to Liberia from July 2006 to March 2007. The abduction took place on June 26, 2006 in Hagonoy, Bulacan.

“It is highly probable that there is an attempt to make it appear that Osorio did not take part in the abduction,” Olalia said, adding that assuming that the assignments are correct, the fact does not exclude that Osorio was probably given a special order.

Mrs. Empeño echoed the same view. “He [Osorio] may have been assigned to a different unit but the higher-ups could always give him a special assignment.” Mrs. Empeño stood by Ramos’s statement.
Empeño said she was disappointed with the Provost Marshal. “He promised to help us, now this.”

Olalia added that even if Osorio was indeed sent to Liberia, he noted that Palparan, too, was sent to Iraq at the time when the international community condemned extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

“It is probable that this person [Osorio] was pulled off after the incident,” Olalia said.

Speaking to reporters after today’s hearing, Palparan decried “persecution” and branded the move of the complainants as “fishing expedition.” Palparan denied he had met Osorio while he was in active service. He said Osorio only provided security to him when the hearings at the DOJ started.

“It is so easy to deny. Why would you get a security guard whom you did not know?” Mrs. Cadapan said in reaction to Palparan’s statement.

“That is not true,” Ramos who attended today’s hearing said. “Why would I lie? What would I get from lying? In fact, my life has been at risk because of this,” Ramos said in Filipino.

A few days before the third hearing, Ramos said, he received text messages from an anonymous sender. He was barraged with invectives and was warned against testifying in the court. Ramos also said he noticed men tailing him from the Karapatan office to his home in Bulacan.

Ramos said he draws courage from the other witnesses. Besides Ramos, four other witnesses submitted their affidavits.

Reacting to Palparan’s statement that he was being persecuted, Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), said: “Pity him. Whether he was in Mindoro or Eastern Visayas or Central Luzon, Palparan left a trail of blood. Saying that those around him are being harassed is the height of arrogance and brazen impunity.”

Hope is alive

After five years of searching, both mothers remain hopeful.

“I see a ray of hope in these hearings,” Mrs. Empeño said.

Mrs. Cadapan said she still sends text messages to one of Sherlyn’s cellphone numbers. “Yesterday, I texted her ‘We miss you for several years already.‘”

Olalia manifested that they will also file an application to place Osorio under the DOJ watch list.

Osorio was given until August 31 to submit his counter-affidavit, the schedule of the next hearing.

by Ronalyn V. Olea , Bulatlat.com

MANILA –Wearing a black dress, Monette Salaysay took the stage and began speaking. Her voice broke and her tears fell the moment she uttered the name of her husband, Napoleon, one of the 32 journalists killed in the Maguindanao massacre on November 23, 2009.

“After two years, I thought I would no longer cry. But it still pains me,” Salaysay said in Filipino. “What makes it even more painful is the fact that the killing was brutal and that the former president knew how evil the perpetrators are.”

“I knew little about the law but I can say that we are just being given the runaround,” Salaysay, who religiously attend hearings, said. Since the massacre, only two members of the Ampatuan clan who are suspected of masterminding the carnage have been arraigned.

In the room are many other relatives of victims of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Like Salaysay, they have lost their husbands, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, co-workers and friends to state violence. Now, as they continue to mourn and to search, they have started raising their fists against a monster called impunity.

More than 300 individuals joined the launching of the End Impunity Alliance in Manila, Aug. 18.

“It is difficult to have high-profile enemies. I don’t know what kind of due process should be accorded to the suspects. All the witnesses have pointed to the Ampatuans. How will impunity end if the justice system is like this?” Salaysay asked.

Winston Balao, brother of James, shared the same sentiments about the justice system.
Winston said they went from one camp to another in search of James but had been denied entry even if they had Commission on Human Rights (CHR) officials with them.

“For the first two years, we could not see any light,” Winston said. He was angered at how the authorities implied that their relatives or James’s colleagues were behind the abduction.

“In such a dark place, we find a ray of light during gatherings like this,” Winston said.

Ernan Baldomero, son of Fernando Baldomero, the first victim of extrajudicial killing under the Aquino administration, also denounced the slow grind of justice.

Fernando, a municipal councilor in Aklan, was shot dead on July 5, 2010.

During his first State of the Nation Address (Sona), President Benigno Aquino III pledged to solve the cases of extrajudicial killings. Aquino even said authorities already identified the suspect in the killing of Fernando.

After more than a year, Ernan said, the court just recently issued a warrant of arrest for the gunman.
Satur Ocampo, Makabayan coalition president and former Bayan Muna representative, noted that Aquino promised several times that he would put an end to the killings. “When he said that 50 percent of the cases have been resolved, he was referring to only six cases. Now, the case of Baldomero is not even resolved yet and 48 more have been killed,” Ocampo said.

Baldomero also served as chairman of Bayan Muna in Aklan.

Bishop Felomino Ang also expressed frustration at the snail-paced court hearings on the murder of Benjamin Bayles.

Bayles was killed by two gunmen on June 14, 2010. The local police arrested the suspects who were identified as members of the 61st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. The two suspects introduced themselves as fish vendors.

“Where can you see fish vendors with .45 caliber pistols? It is clear that the two suspects are soldiers,” Ang said. “Their lawyers are from the military. What is their business defending them if the suspects are not soldiers?”

Ang said he feared a possible whitewash, saying that the prosecutor, witnesses and even journalists covering the hearings are being harassed. “It has been more than a year and the two hand guns used in the killing have not been turned over to the court,” he said.

In her keynote address, Mrs. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas, captured the agony of the other relatives of victims.

”That we have gone through the all the avenues of the justice system available to us throughout the more than four years that Jonas has been missing, is a testimony that there remains the minutest element of respect for the system. But even that is slowly being eroded. And to think that the case of Jonas is moving fast according to observers. We can imagine how the families of other victims feel as their cases drag in court,” Mrs. Burgos said.

“However, even as we go through the slow and seemingly deliberately long-drawn-out process of the justice system, we have this feeling that soon, very soon patience would run out. This feeling not of impatience but of exasperation (an understatement) is inflamed by the continuous occurrence of violations of human rights… enforced disappearances and extra legal killings continue,” she said.

Since Aquino assumed office on July 1, 2010, Karapatan has already documented 50 cases of extrajudicial killings, eight cases of enforced disappearance and more than a hundred cases of illegal arrests and detention.

Mrs. Burgos said: “I honestly believe that the ongoing campaign waged in the guise of fighting terrorism (Oplan Bayanihan) yet uses violence is evil.”

In its declaration, the End Impunity Alliance called on Aquino to keep his promises and hold accountable the previous Arroyo administration for the numerous human rights violations committed under its watch.

“We call on the new president to stop the extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, enforced disappearances, forced evacuation of rural villages and other human rights violations which continue as brazenly to this day. He should likewise hold accountable and see to the prosecution of the perpetrators during his incumbency,” the alliance said in a statement.

Conveners of the alliance include Caloocan Bishop Deogracias S. Iñiguez, Jr. and Bp. Solito K. Toquero, Co-chairs of Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum; Rev. Fr. Rex RB. Reyes Jr., General Secretary of NCCP; Rev. Fr. Quirico Pedregosa, Co-chair of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines; Obispo Maximo Ephraim Fajutagana of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente; Bp. Reuel Norman O. Marigza, General Secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP); Bp. Elmer Bolocon, Bishop Emeritus, UCCP.

Award winning director Joel Lamangan, actor Allen Dizon, Gwen Pimentel, wife of Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, Marie Hilao Enriquez, Karapatan chairwoman, Cristina Palabay, Tanggol Bayi convenor and several human rights lawyers from all over the country under the banner of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) are also among the conveners.

With the formation of the alliance, relatives of victims share hope that justice will prevail.

“To all victims of state violence, let us keep on fighting,” Salaysay said. (http://bulatlat.com)

PRESS RELEASE
by Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights, Vancouver-Canada

Some eighty people met for the solidarity picnic called “PeaceMeal” at Trout Lake Park in Vancouver on Sunday, August the 14th. The event was jointly organized by The Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights, Migrante-BC,  the Victoria-Philippines Solidarity Group and WedPro.

Participants of diverse communities and organizations attended to remember the victims of repression in the Philippines and reaffirm their commitment of solidarity in opposing human rights violations. Joining Filipinos and Filipino-Canadians, Canadian solidarity activists from Solidarity Labour Notes Choir, Crafts for a Cause, Spartacus Bookstore, Coalition for Migrant Workers’ Justice, Iranian Centre for Peace, Freedom and Social Justice, Kathara Collective, Committee for Domestic Workers’ Rights, Lakeview United Church, Mobilization Against War and Occupation and Pride Vancouver were present alongside members of BC’s Latin American communities, and Amnesty International (Richmond chapter). Member of the Legislative Assembly, Mable Elmore also attended.

People gathered under the trees, where photographs of the slain and the disappeared,  the stories of their lives, alongside poems and songs written and dedicated to them, were hung.

Fr. Justin Trinidad, led a ceremony calling on all to work for peace and social justice. He lit a candle representing remembrance and the quest to follow the light of justice.  Dr. Chandu Claver of the Victoria-Philippines Solidarity Group and Bayan-Canada chairperson,  urged the people to continue taking action to oppose human rights abuses and achieve justice and indemnification for the victims.  He and his family came to Canada to find refuge from persecution after his wife and mother of their three daughters was ambushed and killed.

The picnic table covers were soon turned into canvases as picnickers were enjoined to create their own artwork in support of human rights.  People were invited to colour black and white images of abducted students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno, indigenous leader James  Balao,  agriculturist -activist Jonas Burgos, slain Bayan Muna coordinator Alyce-Omengan-Claver, botanist  Leonardo Co, and political detainee Ericson Acosta.

People signed postcards addressed to Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino for the surfacing of abducted indigenous human rights activist, James Balao.  A petition for the general, unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners in the Philippines was passed around and signed.

Thousands  of state-sponsored extrajudicial killings and  cases of enforced disappearances committed under the past regime of Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo have yet to be prosecuted and served justice.  Impunity prevails because up to the present, no one has been put behind bars for human rights violations. Now, more than ever, it is important that peace- and justice-loving members of the international community show solidarity with the Filipino people in pressuring the Aquino government to decisively stop human rights violations and end the reigning climate of repression and impunity.

For more info:
Email:  [email protected]
http://peacemeal.interactionable.org