It is good that Filipino-American Melissa Roxas, a member of the US chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), has announced that she would sue military agents who tortured her almost to the point of death. Her lawyer said she would seek damages in a US federal court against the Philippine government and his group would also file a complaint before the US State Department and the United Nations.

She should also file a case in a Philippine court, and hope that others who went through experiences similar to hers will follow her example and file their complaints.

The filing of a case in a US federal court and of complaints before the US State Department and the United Nations may yet produce a result similar to that of the case filed by nearly 10,000 victims of human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship. In 1995 a court in Hawaii awarded the complainants $2 billion in damages. But more than just the payment of damages to Roxas, the cases she filed should result in the revelation of the truth about not just her complaint but also about the 1,010 cases of torture, the 1,013 victims of extrajudicial killings and the 202 victims of enforced disappearances since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came into power in 2001.

The Philippine government has said that Roxas’ story was stage-managed. But what would she gain by inventing a story of torture? She was visiting the Philippines as a volunteer for an “exposure program” when she was reported missing in La Paz, Tarlac, on May 19. She returned to her Tarlac home on May 26. She said she nearly suffocated when her torturers put two plastic bags over her head. This is surely something that she would never forget for the rest of her life.

She said she was abducted by men she believed to be members of the military. It appeared that she was detained at a military camp in Nueva Ecija, presumably Fort Magsaysay. She was grilled by men who addressed one of them as “Sir.” She was told that she was abducted because she was a member of the New People’s Army.

Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., Armed Forces spokesperson, denied that Roxas was tortured by military agents at Fort Magsaysay. But of course they will deny that extrajudicial killings, tortures and enforced disappearances are being carried out by military agents. These agents may not be members of regular Armed Forces units but of secret, shadowy military groups often referred to as Army “black squads.”

These groups have been operating under a climate of impunity since Ms Arroyo assumed the presidency, spurred by her order to the generals to stamp out the communist insurgency by 2010. The military and the police have gone all-out in their campaign, targeting and attacking not just the armed guerrillas of the New People’s Army but also unarmed, non-combatant leftist militants and activists.

So the extrajudicial killings, the tortures, the enforced disappearances go on. And nobody is held to account for them. On the contrary, generals and other officers like Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, who have played important roles in this mad-dog campaign that does not distinguish between combatants and civilians are not held to account but are instead praised publicly and rewarded with plum posts by Ms Arroyo.

Roxas has said that these killings, tortures and enforced disappearances have got to stop. She said: “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else ever again. I want the world to know what happened because the Philippine government and military should not get away with what they did to me.”

She has taken the first step toward the discovery of the truth about the extrajudicial killings, tortures and enforced disappearances under the Arroyo administration. She deserves the support of all people who believe in the sanctity and value of human life and in the correct and fair dispensation of justice. We hope that, as in the human rights case tried in the US, this case will produce positive results for the victims, their relatives and survivors, and help put an end to a dark chapter in the Philippines’ history.