The Red commander

The Abduction

The story begins in July of 2006, in a remote hamlet in the town of Hagonoy, Bulacan.

“Four armed men passed us holding Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan. Ate Sherlyn was screaming and begging for help while they were being brought out of the alley.”

Karen was blindfolded with her own shirt. Sherlyn was two months pregnant. Both were college seniors, active among farmer groups, and members of the activist group League of Filipino Students, often accused of being a recruiting hub for the New People’s Army. A farmer named Manuel Merino heard the girls scream that July morning, and ran out of his house to help.

“When the armed men caught sight of Manuel Merino, they rammed a rifle at his throat that caused him to fall to his knees. The armed men brought him along and put him in the jeep.”

A 14-year-old boy nicknamed Jollibee told this story before the Court of Appeals. He was one of two witnesses who filed a joint statement after the abduction of UP students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno.

The complaint named as respondents Lieutenant General Romeo Tolentino, Major General Jovito Palparan and Lt. Mirabelle Samson, among others, all under or commanding the AFP’s Seventh Division, the AFP division that controlled an area that had seen the deaths and disappearances of dozens of activists.

Jollibee hesitated only once, when he caught the eye of a grinning Lieutenant Colonel Rogelio Boac, one of the respondents and commander of the Task Force Malolos Special Operations Team designated to fight the communist insurgency. The 14-year old looked away, and missed the sight of an AFP lieutenant colonel sticking out his tongue at a minor inside a court of law.

The search

When the abduction was reported, human rights volunteers went to the 56th Infantry Battalion headquarters in Iba. A stainless steel jeep with plate number RTF was found parked inside the compound. The military denied its existence.

In an episode of the TV show “Debate,” host Solita Monsod asked Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, nicknamed “The Butcher” by activists, about the allegation that the military was responsible for the abductions. He claimed his soldiers knew nothing of the incident, but said there had been two girls and a man picked up in the area, “But they are real NPA, who for five years were dominating the area.”

Task Force Usig, formed to investigate extrajudicial killings and disappearances after international pressure on the Arroyo government, claimed that investigating the disappearance of the two UP students was a task that did not fall under its mandate. The local police, they said, should investigate the case.

The local police, in the person of one Police Officer 3 Ponciano dela Cruz, claimed that there was no student kidnapping. He claimed the police could not investigate without an existing complaint filed in the police blotter. Told there was a complaint and given the filing date, he claimed that no family member had come forward. Told the name of the sister-in-law who personally went to the police station to file the report, he claimed nothing could be done as no witnesses had stepped forward. Told that witnesses had been stepping forward for weeks in open court, he was indignant. “Why did no one tell us?” he asked.

At the end of the conversation, the man who did not know there was a kidnapping gave his assurance that he and his men had been working doggedly for weeks to investigate the crime.

The trials

Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, retired commander of the 7th Infantry Battalion, failed to appear four times at Court of Appeals hearings, citing anniversary parties, meetings with the President, fevers that demanded hospitalization, until the court threatened contempt.

“General, Sir,” asked the petitioners’ counsel, “is there a war going on between the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines?”

“It is a conflict, not a war,” Palparan said.

Asked the same question, Boac answered. “If you think so, I agree.”

Samson’s answer took much thought. “Maybe.”

Palparan claimed that there were groups of militants “posing to be legal and ordinary” but which were actually enemies of the state. Asked to name them, he said he was unsure. Reminded of his statements to the press, he said he “cannot recall.”

The CA Special Former 11th Division dismissed the petition for habeas corpus on the ground that it was not the proper remedy in the case, and recommended the filing of criminal complaints. The decision also included the following note:

“The respondents were not telling the whole truth as they appeared to be evasive in their declarations. They were persistent in their denials but their assertions contradict each other.”

Samson, when asked about her knowledge of her team’s tactics against the Left, claimed she was not aware of any manual or guidelines.

“What do you do,” asked the lawyer, “operate on instinct?”

“Yes, your honor,” she said.

The witness

In November of 2006, a Bulacan mining worker named Oscar Leuterio surfaced after five months of disappearance. He swore to a statement that narrated months of torture and captivity in what he claimed was Fort Magsaysay. The 48-year-old, whose statement was interrupted by coughing fits, said that women fitting the UP students’ description were also held captive, along with a man whose torture he witnessed. The man was his friend, Manuel Merino.

The AFP, in a letter to the editor of this paper, complained that Leuterio’s testimony was “despicably inaccurate and farcical.”

On Aug. 13, 2007, a 22-year-old farmer named Raymond Manalo appeared after being abducted more than a year before. His story, described by the Supreme Court as “harrowing and believable,” described thievery, murder and torture by the military. He named Palparan as the leader, and claimed personal contact. On April 2007, he said, he saw Sherlyn naked, both wrists and one tied, leg propped up. He said she was beaten, electrocuted and half-drowned. He saw Karen, dragged out of her cell, burned with cigarettes and raped with pieces of wood. He said he was there when they killed Manuel Merino. He identified the soldiers as elements of the Philippine Army based in the 56th Infantry Battalion headquarters in Barangay Iba, Hagonoy, Bulacan under the command of Palparan.

Palparan denies all of these, and adds that Raymond Manalo is a proven member of the New People’s Army. “We have records of that. He’s an enemy.”

The wait

Since the abduction, the mothers of the two UP students have become constants in human rights protests. Raymond Manalo and Oscar Leuterio remain in hiding.

Jovito Palparan was voted a congressman of the Republic of the Philippines.

Last week, five years after the abductions, the Department of Justice served retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan with a subpoena, after the Supreme Court demanded that he and his men release Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno.