MANILA, Philippines--A student leader at Philippine Christian University (PCU) is set to file a petition for a writ of amparo in the Supreme Court and seek the help of the Commission on Human Rights to stop alleged military intelligence agents from harassing her.

Glaiza Dimapilis, 19, an accounting junior and president of the PCU student council, met with reporters surreptitiously because, she said, a military agent was following her around, had been to her home and told her parents to make her quit what she was allegedly doing.

She said she was told she was in the military’s “order of battle.”

“(The agent) told me I could be on the shoot-to-kill list or be arrested without a warrant,” Dimapilis told reporters.

Dimapilis is also secretary general of the National Union of Students of the Philippines-National Capital Region and a member of the school political party, Sandigan ng Mag-aaral para sa Sambayanan (Samasa).

The writ of amparo allows citizens to seek protection from the courts or redress for extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances. It also removes from authorities the defense of denial, obliges them to take action to solve such killings and disappearances, and holds them accountable for such acts.

Special trip

Dimapilis said her ordeal began Wednesday last week while she was on her way home from school. She boarded a tricycle at the Villamor Air Base gate in Pasay City but, to her surprise, the driver did not wait for other passengers.

As they were traveling, the driver, who was clad in a shirt with a military emblem, asked her how her father was.

Although surprised, she assumed the man knew her father, a retired member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. “I told him my dad was okay,” she said.

The man then asked her if they could discuss political issues.
“I’m too young for politics,” Dimapilis had replied, suddenly uneasy. She said the driver retorted: “You know what kind of politics I’m talking about.”

Dimapilis said she became fearful and got off the tricycle a few blocks from her house but was shocked when the driver told her, “you do not live here, and why do leave home so early when your classes start at 3 p.m.?”

She said the man then gave her complete name, exact address and class schedule.

The next day, she said, the man was at the Villamor gate and followed her to school.

When she asked him who he was and why he was following her, he said his name was “Mike Santos.”

“I told him, ‘you are a military (agent), I know, you’re a member of the intelligence service,’” Dimapilis said.

House visit

She said Santos came to their house Friday morning and talked to her parents.

“Do you know what your daughter has been doing? Her group is affiliated with a leftist group. You should tell her to resign,” Dimapilis said Santos told her parents.

She said Santos then quipped: “Dapat sa mga yan unti-unting binabawasan (Their kind should be slowly eradicated).”

“And how do you plan to do that, abduct each one of us?” she had retorted.

Santos, she said, told her parents to go to the military camp with their daughter, “if you want to know what she is doing.”

Dimapilis said she protested, saying there was no warrant of arrest out for her.

Dimapilis left her home at Villamor last Friday.

“I have no choice but to move from place to place to avoid being followed. But I fear more for my family,” she told reporters.

She said a major in the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) had also told her family she was in the military’s order of battle.

She said the officer wanted her to become a military asset or “tracer.”