Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro —PHOTO
BY KARAPATAN-CENTRAL LUZON
BALANGA CITY—While the Philippine National Police has denied that its personnel have a hand in the disappearance of two activists in Bataan province on Sept. 2, the mother of one of the missing women claimed the police were not cooperating in their search.
In an interview with the Inquirer on Thursday, Roselie Castro, 46, mother of Jonila Castro, said police officers had visited their house in Plaridel town, Bulacan province, for what the authorities described only as “verification.”
Jonila Castro, 21, and Jhed Tamano, 22, were allegedly abducted on Sept. 2 by four armed men in front of the Orion Water District Office and were forced into a gray sport utility vehicle. They are members of Akap-Ka Manila Bay, an environmental alliance based in Central Luzon that is opposing reclamation activities in Manila Bay.
Visit
“The Plaridel police came to visit four days after the abduction but their questions were not good. They said that my daughter was recruited in Bataan but it baffled me because my daughter and her companion were merely volunteers,” Roselie said in Filipino without elaborating what the police had meant.
In another interview on dwPM on Thursday, Roselie said personnel of the Orion police were “delaying” the release of the blotter report on the alleged kidnapping of her daughter and Tamano.
The mother said the police were asking her to give a statement “purportedly to say that our daughters are doing something wrong. But they are not, because they are only helping other people.”
She said the Orion police also refused to sign a document, certifying that her daughter and Tamano had not been under their custody.
Roselie described her daughter as a hardworking student but who did not finish school when she decided to do volunteer work for Akap-Ka Manila Bay at the height of the pandemic. Castro and Tamano studied at Bulacan State University.
“Jonila just wants to help because there are many people in need, so she informed us that she will stop her studies,” Roselie said.
In a statement, the “Surface Jonila and Jhed Network” said Roselie and some human rights advocates also sought the assistance of the Orion police, hoping that local policemen would provide leads to the whereabouts of Castro and Tamano.
“But instead of help, the police gave the fact-finding team the cold shoulder. [They] refused to cooperate in signing a legal document declaring that they did not have custody of Castro and Tamano and that they would be charged if they did not tell the truth,” the group said.
According to the network, the policemen told them that they still needed to study the document first.
In a separate phone interview, Fernando Hicap, national chair of the fisherfolk group Pamalakaya, denounced the Bataan police “for not even recognizing the incident of enforced disappearance of environmental activists.”
“PNP-Bataan’s noncooperation in the blotter case of the missing activists’ families only shows that the police are hiding something,” Hicap said.
“If the police are not guilty of anything, they must fully cooperate with the independent investigation being conducted by the families with the help of human rights organizations,” he added.
Denial
But Bataan police officials said they could not easily jump to conclusions about the alleged abduction of the youth activists.
Police Capt. Carlito Buco, Bataan police’s administrative and information officer, told the Inquirer that no one had come forward to their office to file an official complaint.
Buco said it was only the relatives of Tamano, whose grandfather is a retired Army soldier, who reported the incident to the local police.
“We are after the crime committed against the young women… if there is really crime done, that is the abduction by a certain group,” Buco said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the PNP said its personnel were helping the families in finding the activists.
PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo told reporters in Camp Crame that a parent of Tamano had already coordinated with the Bataan provincial police office, as well as with Gov. Joet Garcia and the regional office of Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Central Luzon.
“What I can reveal is the parent has an idea where the child is but I am not at liberty to reveal it right now because there are ongoing efforts to convince the child to go home,” Fajardo said.
“On the part of the PNP, we categorically deny any knowledge on the alleged abduction but we have an idea, and in fact, the parents themselves have an idea as to where their children are,” she added.
CHR investigation
The CHR said it started investigating the reported abduction of the activists, who disappeared just days after the country marked the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances on Aug. 31.
On Thursday, CHR chair Richard Palpal-latoc also asked the Marcos administration—which has seen 11 activists go missing since President Marcos took office in 2022—“to take decisive action before another case of missing human rights defenders is reported.”
Palpal-latoc called on government agencies to help in the search and for witnesses to step forward and coordinate with the CHR and other investigative bodies.