UCCP Pastor Abducted by Armed Men

The violations to the rights and dignity of persons under the presidency of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo continue with impunity. It is evident in the widespread poverty, unabated graft and corruption, and extrajudicial killings and abductions. The latest victim; Pastor Edwin Egar of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP). All in all, some 20 church workers and lay leaders of the UCCP have been killed, a number imprisoned.

On February 11, 2009, on or about 5:30-6:00 pm, six unidentified armed men alighted from a van and a car, barged in the house of Mrs. Ellen Lunar Delgado, Pastor Egar’s niece in Bgy. Alupay, Rosario, Batangas. They rushed to where Pastor Egar was and forcibly dragged him into a Mitsubishi Adventure van. Ellen and Mrs. Luz Villa, Edwin’s sister, tried to go with the group but they were prevented as guns were pointed to them.

Pastor Edwin Egar has been hounded by the military for more than two years. He is being linked to the New People’s Army. The UCCP congregation in Macalamcam, Rosario, Batangas where his wife, Rev. Juliet Egar is the administrative pastor, has been tagged as a “red area” meaning, infiltrated by communist insurgents. On several occasions, church leaders presented him before military and police officers to clarify the insinuations. In fact in a dialogue participated in by high ranking military and police officials was held right in Macalamcam, the officers gave Pastor Edwin a clean bill.

Pastor Edwin is part of what is now known as Calapan 72, a group of 72 leaders of people’s organizations that included a pastor of the United Methodist church and two (2) lay leaders of the UCCP, charged with multiple murder and frustrated multiple murder by the Regional Trial Court Branch 39 in Calapan City and a warrant of arrest was issued. Six of the 72 were arrested but they were released when Hon. Manuel C. Luna, judge of the same court, quashed the said warrant in a decision rendered February 5, 2009.

Apparently, either the men who abducted Pastor Edwin were totally ignorant of the quashing of the warrant, or they just wanted to harass and inflict pain to men and women like Pastor Egar who exercised his prophetic ministry and served the poor farmers in Batangas, specially during times of disasters and hardships.

That he was not tortured nor killed is something that we can be thankful for. But as we look at the incident as part of the track record of a government that has refused admission to the incidents of human rights violation and continues to be, as stated in the report Philip Alston of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, in a state of denial, then such incidents should be condemned and denounced.

We call the police or military unit that conducted the arrest/abduction of Pastor Edwin to issue and apology since the manner of the arrest violated even accepted procedures of engagement.

We call on the government of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo not to coddle human right violators and subject them to disciplinary action as eventually, it is her regime that will be held responsible to the acts of her subordinates.

We call on our people to stand firm and defend their rights and dignity even as our country is gripped with economic crisis, moral decadence and apathy. Let us all become instruments of peace and change.

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