Colonel ready to answer ‘Morong 43’ charges

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna—One of the respondents in the P15-million damage suit filed against Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and 10 ranking Army and police officers said five of the “Morong 43” would take the witness stand to belie their colleagues’ claims of torture.

Col. Aurelio Baladad, commander of the Army’s 202nd Infantry Brigade based in Rizal town, Laguna province, said he and the other respondents were ready to answer the accusation that the 43 health workers suffered physical and psychological torture during their 10-month detention at Camp Capinpin in Tanay town, Rizal province.

Six of the Morong 43 filed the civil suit for illegal arrest and torture against Arroyo et al. on Monday.

“It is their right to file a complaint [but] we are going to answer the charges. We maintain that they are (members of the) NPA,” Baladad (not Baladlad, as earlier reported) said Tuesday in a phone interview, referring to the communist New People’s Army.

‘On our side’

Baladad said he and the other respondents were confident of having “on our side” the five who had earlier admitted to being NPA rebels.

The five—Valentino Paulino, Cherilyn Tawagon, Eleanor Carandang, Jennyllyn Pizzaro and John Mark Barrientos—are still in military custody.

“They would most likely be our witnesses to debunk the torture claims. They could attest how they were treated [while in detention] and that there was no torture at all,” Baladad said.

He said it would also be helpful to the defense to use the accounts of civilian witnesses that some of the Morong 43 “rejoined” the NPA after they were freed.

He added that he and the other respondents had yet to receive copies of the formal complaint and learned about the suit only from news reports.

On Feb. 6, 2010, government troops raided a farm resort in Morong, Rizal, and arrested 43 persons allegedly undergoing training in making explosives.

The 43 said they were medical practitioners and community health workers and denied links to the NPA.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) dropped the charges against them in December, prompting the release of 38.

‘Harassment’

Former Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Arroyo could not be held liable for the illegal arrest and alleged torture of the Morong 43.

The issue of hierarchy “won’t apply because what the military carried out on Feb. 6, 2010, was a legitimate operation” against suspected NPA rebels, Ermita told reporters in Lubao town, Pampanga province, after attending Mass to mark Arroyo’s 64th birthday Tuesday.

Elena Bautista-Horn, Arroyo’s spokesperson, said the suit was “a harassment case.”

“We still have to wait for the copy of the [complaint],” she added.

Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, replied in the negative when the Inquirer asked if the former President was worried over legal cases she might face under the Aquino administration.

“These are all baseless,” he said.

Lightning rally

In Manila, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and Imprison Arroyo Movement held a lightning rally at the DoJ office urging Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to prosecute Arroyo for the scuttled $329-million NBN-ZTE deal.

Paulo Quiza, spokesperson of Bayan’s National Capital Region chapter, said in a statement that the rally was its way “to greet and send a birthday wish to Arroyo, which is for her immediate prosecution and imprisonment.”

Quiza challenged President Benigno Aquino III and the DoJ to “start all possible means to put Arroyo and her cohorts behind bars.”

“Now is the best time for P-Noy to make [a] significant move to let Mrs. Arroyo pay the price for [her] anti-people policies during her nine-year stay in the [seat] of power,” he said. With reports from Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon; and Nikko Dizon in Manila