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UPDATE (Philippines): More details of procedural flaws and torture have surfaced in arrest of 43 health workers

February 12, 2010

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ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal Update: AHRC-UAU-032-2010 (formerly published as AHRC-UAU-005-2010)

12 February 2010


[RE: AHRC-UAU-003-2010: PHILIPPINES: Two torture victims rearrested with 41 others on questionable charges]
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PHILIPPINES: More details of procedural flaws and torture have surfaced in arrest of 43 health workers

ISSUES: Torture victims; torture; right to liberty and security; arbitrary arrest and detention; human rights defenders
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STOP extrajudicial killings in the Philippines
http://www.pinoyhr.net/
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Dear Friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received further details of how the military and police used psychological torture methods on the 43 health workers who are continuously being held in a military camp. The 43 victims, two of whom had been tortured in the past, were illegally arrested on questionable charges in February 6, 2010. The procedure, in which the police and the military arrested, detained and filed charges against the victims, is flawed.

UPDATED INFORMATION:

In our previous appeal (AHRC-UAU-003-2010), we identified seven of the 43 victims who are continuously being held arbitrarily in a military camp in Camp Capinpin, Morong, Rizal. None of those arrested have ever had pending arrest warrants; however the police and the military arrested and subsequently detained them in a military camp where they were interrogated and tortured.

The AHRC has obtained ten more names of the health workers. They are Lydia Ubera, Reynaldo Makabenta, Delia Ocasla, Jane Balleta, Ailene Monasteryo, Pearl Irene Martinez, Ellen Carandang, Dany Panero, Rayom Among and Emily Marquez. They are amongst those who took part in the training on health skills--the First Responders Training--which was organised by the Community Medicine Foundation, Inc. (COMMED) and the Council for Health and Development (CHD).

According to reports gathered by Karapatan, a local human rights organisation, when the policemen and the military came to serve the search warrant, they forced their way into the place where the victims were holding the training. At gunpoint, the military forced the caretaker to open the gates and soon after the soldiers went in different directions. They also kicked open the main door to get into the building.

When Dr. Melecia Velmonte and her son Bob demanded to see a search warrant, the military ignored them. Dr. Velmonter, a known government physician who works for the government's Philippine General Hospital (PGH) as a specialist for infectious disease, owns the place where the training was held.

Under the law, when the police serve a court order to conduct searches they are under obligation to show it to the person who owns or occupies the place subject for searches. The purpose of this is to ensure that the person to whom the search warrant is addressed can ensure that the name and location of the place subject for the search is correct.

However, what the police and the military did was to handcuff and order all the medical practitioners and health workers to queue at the garage where they were subjected to a body search. The soldiers began questioning them, took photographs of them and recorded a video while they were being questioned. The male victims were blindfolded with old shirts the soldiers had with them and these were further wrapped with adhesive tape. All of the personal belongings of the victims were also taken by the military.

Also, when the military and police conducted the search of the compound’s premises, the occupants were not allowed to supervise the searches. Instead, they and all the 43 victims were taken outside the premises; thereby leaving only the police and the soldiers to conduct the searches without supervision by the occupant. Under the law, when searches are conducted, there must be witnesses, like the head of the village or occupants themselves, for purposes of ensuring that the materials subject for search are properly documented.

After conducting the search, the police and soldiers claimed to have found C4 explosives, a pistol with seven bullets, three hand grenades (one allegedly found under a pillow) and improvised landmines. Neither the police and the military provided a proper documentation of the materials found, nor the receipt of the inventory of the firearms and explosives they claimed to have seized. It took the police and military about three hours to conduct the search of the Velmonte compound.

It was only after all of the victims were handcuffed that Police Superintendent Marion P. Balonglong showed Bob the search warrant that they were carrying.

However, the name of the person in the search warrant and the subject of the search did not bear the owner's name and the correct location of their property. It was under a person named Mario Condes of Barangay Maybangcal, Morong, Rizal, who was facing charges of illegal possession of firearms. The search warrant was dated February 5, 2010 and issued by Judge Cesar A. Mangrobang of Branch 22 of the Imus, Cavite Regional Trial Court, and did not indicate the exact address of the Velmonte compound.

But when Bob asserted that the name and the location of the search warrant the police were carrying did not bear theirs, which could have justified the conduct of searches, the police and the military ignored his argumentation. The name of the persons, Mario Condes, who is the subject of the warrant, neither owns the house nor is known to the owner.

The military and police arresting team were led by Colonel Aurelio Baladad, commander of the 202nd Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army; and Police Superintendent Marion Balonglong of PNP Rizal.

All the victims were then taken to Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal, a military camp and headquarters of the 202nd Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army (PA). They were forced into a convoy of military vehicles composed of four 6 x 6 military trucks, two military Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), a car and an ambulance. Some of the vehicles had no plate numbers while the rest of the license plates were either covered, or smeared with mud.

All the victims have now been charged with the Illegal Possession of Explosives before a local prosecutor's office. However, the manner in which the inquest proceeding was made is questionable. It was the public prosecutor who had gone to the military camp instead of the police and the military going to the prosecutor's office to conduct the inquest.

Under section 2 of the Department of Justice's (DoJ) Department Circular No. 61, public prosecutors can only conduct inquests in police stations not in military camps:

"..those assigned to inquest duties shall discharge their functions during the hours of designated assignments and only at the police stations/headquarters of the PNP in order to expedite and facilitate the disposition of inquest cases"

The military camp where the victims are being held is also not a regular detention facility. The victims should have been transferred and held in regular police stations, not in military camps. At 2pm today, February 12, the Court of Appeal (CA) heard the petition for the writ of habeas corpus that victims' relatives had filed.

VICTIMS' TESTIMONY AND DETAILS OF TORTURE:

Dr. Alexis Montes, 62 years old
This report mentioned how he was electrocuted and repeatedly hit on the chest while being questioned. The military has accused him of being a member of the New People's Army (NPA) and the rebel's supposed special unit task for assassinations. It is reported that the extent of the pain he had suffered for several hours would have made him willing to admit to anything.

Dr. Merry Mia Clamor, 33 years old
She was blindfolded and handcuffed while subjected to questioning inside a room she could not describe. In this report, Clamor said of her experience: “I was shocked. I could not say anything” when asked whether she had treated Gregorio Rosal aka Ka Roger, the spokesperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

“I was doing this (training health work) with the purest intention—to train volunteers and to give them skills so they themselves can help others in their community”. Clamor had been listed supposedly as a “national level” by the military. “It’s a shame… I chose to stay here in the Philippines instead of going abroad. I chose to stay [despite] the knowledge it would be a thankless job,” she said.

Her husband, Roneo Clamor, is the deputy secretary general of Karapatan.

Glenda Murillo, she is presently pregnant.
Murillo said of her experience after Leila De Lima, chairperson of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR), interviewed her during her personal visit to the victims at the camp: "Wala naman po silang nakuha at nakita po talaga sa amin. Inaano lang nila na mga NPA daw po kami, pero hindi naman po (They did not find anything from us, but they (military) are insisting that we are NPA members)"

De Lima said of the torture the victims had experienced:
In her personal visit at the camp where the victims are held, Commissioner De Lima had described how the victims had been psychologically tortured.

In this report De Lima said: One thing is sure, hindi daw sila pinapatulog, continuous ang interrogation (They were not allowed to sleep. They were subjected to a continuous interrogation). One of them says that they were continuously handcuffed and blindfolded for about 36 hours. And going to the comfort room, hindi sila pwede humawak sa sarili nila, Meaning iba ang sumusubo sa pagkain sa kanila (They were not allowed to touch their own body, meaning those feeding them food is someone else)".

She also found that the victims had been denied the right to counsel despite their repeated demands for a lawyer during interrogation.

Under the Anti-Torture Act of 2009, or Republic Act 9745, blindfolding is a form of mental or psychological torture. De Lima led a team from the CHR interviewing the victims at Camp Capinpin, Tanay, Rizal, on February 8.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please make use of the sample letter that we have issued in our previous appeal (AHRC-UAU-003-2010) in responding to this one. You can send your letters by fax or post mail.

You can also click on this button or pass on this link to others for them to respond to this appeal. By clicking this appeal, your appeal letter will be sent directly to the recipient of the appeal.

In writing your appeal letters, include the names of the ten other victims, as mentioned in the body of this appeal, in the list of victims. The AHRC will keep you informed of any progress regarding this case.

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrc.asia)

Related content
Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Case
Document ID :
AHRC-UAU-032-2010
Countries :
Issues :
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PILIPINAS: Iba pang detalye ng lamat sa proseso at tortyur na lumabas sa pag aresto sa 43 na manggagawang pangkalusugan
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Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.