Satur Demands Release of ‘Tagaytay 5′

MANILA Deputy Minority Leader Satur C. Ocampo today called for the immediate release from arbitrary detention for 19 months without being arraigned of five farmers accused of plotting to overthrow the government and called for the investigation on the arrest and detention.

Ocampo, together with fellow Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño today filed House Resolution 297 directing the Committee on Human Rights to conduct and immediate investigation on the alleged illegal arrest, detention, malicious imputation of criminal acts, and torture of three peasant leaders and two advocates collectively known as “Tagaytay 5″.

“After more than 18 months in detention, the rebellion case against the Tagaytay 5 remains pending before the Tagaytay Regional Trial Court Branch 18. Their arraignment has yet to transpire. The five men are currently detained at Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna and are allowed access to sunlight only thrice a week. Visits from family and friends remain restricted,” the Bayan Muna representatives’ resolution said.

Ocampo said that “the Tagaytay 5’s case is a strong substantiation of the police and the military’s involvement in the enforced disappearances of political activists.”

HR 297 stated that “On April 28, 2006, human rights group KARAPATAN–Southern Tagalog reported that three peasant leaders and two peasant advocates in Cavite were abducted by combined elements of Philippine National Police (PNP) and Naval Intelligence Security Forces (NISF).”

“On May 1, 2006, (then) Director General Arturo Lomibao and PNP-Calabarzon Director Prospero Noble presented the aforesaid missing persons in a press conference and stated that they had been arrested because they were members of the New People’s Army (NPA) who allegedly planned to sabotage the celebration of Labor Day,” the resolution narrated.

“The five men said that they were brought to at least four detention centers. They said that for three days and three nights, they were blindfolded and handcuffed. According to them, they were never told why they had been arrested. Their captors kept on forcing them to admit that they were NPA rebels and that they were involved in a so-called destabilization plot against the Macapagal-Arroyo government,” Ocampo said.

“What the Tagaytay 5 have undergone is very similar to the Gestapo-like tactics employed by security forces in the enforced disappearances of other political activists,” the militant lawmaker said referring to the abduction of Bayan Muna national council member Jing Cardiño in Koronadal City last June 6 who was only surfaced after two days.

Ocampo also noted “the disappearance of brother’s Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo who have been detained by the military in different secret prisons and safehouses, and tortured for a year-and-a-half before managing to escape.”

“I hope the committee on human rights will immediately take up the Tagaytay 5’s case, among the other instances of enforced disappearances and human rights violations, and call to account the police, the AFP, and the commander-in-chief,” says Ocampo. #

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