Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro —FILE PHOTO BY KARAPATAN-CENTRAL LUZON
Environmental activists Jonila Castro and Jhed Reiyana Tamano, who were presented as rebel returnees after they were detained without charges for eight days last year, sued their captors on Thursday over their ordeal.
In a complaint filed with the Ombudsman, both women accused government and military officials of violating their rights when they were illegally arrested and detained in September 2023.
READ: Disappearance of 2 activists a ‘professional operation’
Their complaint involved violations of Republic Act No. 10353 (Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012), RA 9745, (Anti-Torture Act of 2009), and RA 7438 (the 1992 law on human and civil rights under custodial investigation).
Named as respondents were Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the National Security Council; Lt. Col. Ronnel de la Cruz, commanding officer of the Philippine Army’s 70th Infantry Battalion; Niño Balagtas, regional director of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency in Central Luzon; Lt. Col. Mario Jose Chico, chief of the strategic communications cluster of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac); and eight other police and military officers.
Threat
In their 22-page complaint, the young activists retold their ordeal before and during their abduction. Castro was then 21 years old while Tamano was 22.
“While inside the vehicle, the men [who took us] rummaged through our personal belongings and confiscated our mobile phones,” they said in the complaint.
Their hands were then restrained and their eyes blindfolded as they were interrogated at an unknown place even without a lawyer present.
“When they learned that our birthdays were just days apart, they taunted us that our death anniversary [would] be the same as our birthday and that we will be buried in one grave,” Castro and Tamano said in their sworn statement.
Tamano said her interrogators would “berate” her every time she failed to answer a question and “slap my hands whenever I tried to touch my blindfolds.”
“They would threaten to slice off my tongue, and that they would bury me and Jonila side-by-side,” she added.
The pair was also asked to sign a “confession” that they were members of Anakbayan for them to qualify for the government program intended for surrendering rebels.
Off-script
They were forced to sign it, upon the advice of a lawyer, whom they identified but did not include in the complaints as a respondent.
The two women were presented to the media on Sept. 19, 2023, as rebel returnees by the NTF-Elcac, the military, and the local government of Plaridel, Bulacan.
But when it was their turn to speak, they boldly revealed that they were “in fact illegally abducted and did not voluntarily surrender.”
“For more than two weeks and during our whole ordeal, we were deprived of our right to talk to lawyers of our own choosing,” they said in the complaint.
“There were also no charges filed against us, nor [were] we brought before any courts of justice to answer for any complaints,” they added.
In February, their petitions for the writs of amparo and habeas data were granted by the Supreme Court which directed the Court of Appeals to decide on their petition for a permanent protection order.
But the appellate court denied their plea on Aug. 2, saying they failed to prove the state’s involvement in their abduction or the existence of a “continuing threat.”