‘No justifying arrest, torture of Morong 43’

MANILA, Philippines—The human rights group Karapatan on Sunday scored the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for justifying the arrest and torture of a group of health workers known as the “Morong 43” after one of its members was reportedly killed and identified as a New People’s Army (NPA) fighter.

Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general, said the death of Ramon de la Cruz, who was supposedly slain in a clash between communist rebels and government forces in Bulacan on Aug. 9, “does not in any way change the facts of the case.”

“The military illegally arrested, detained and tortured the 43 health workers, period,” Palabay said in a statement.

She said the statements in the media of AFP Northern Luzon Command chief Maj. Gen. Pio Gregorio Catapang and Army 7th Infantry Division chief Maj. Gen. Hernando Irriberi only supported the “military’s twisted logic that the AFP was right in arresting, detaining and torturing” the health workers “because they were NPA (rebels).”

Debunks claim

Catapang said De la Cruz and two other insurgents were killed when a band of NPA rebels clashed with a group of soldiers and local policemen in Doña Remedios Trinidad town.

Irriberi had said that De la Cruz’s death “debunks the claim that (the) Morong 43 were purely health workers.”

Palabay countered: “Nothing justifies torture and illegal arrest.”

“Whether De la Cruz joined the NPA after his release or not was his personal choice,” she said.

In a phone interview, Palabay confirmed that a Ramon de la Cruz was among the health workers arrested by a military and police team in Morong, Rizal, in February 2010 on suspicion that they were communist rebels attending a bomb-making seminar.

They were detained in a military camp in Tanay, Rizal, for 10 months before the Department of Justice withdrew the case against them in December 2010 over the military’s failure to follow procedures in arresting the group.

Palabay said De la Cruz appeared to be the same man whose photograph was released by the military last week.

“But we have no confirmation yet if the same Ramon de la Cruz was the man killed in the encounter in Bulacan,” she said.

Despite the military’s claim that De la Cruz was an NPA rebel, she said her group “stands by our previous statements” that the Morong 43 were “community health workers who… were illegally arrested, detained and tortured.”

Attempt to justify crime

“The military’s continued insistence that they were members of the NPA is an attempt to justify the crime they committed against the health workers,” Palabay said.

Sought for comment, Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, AFP public affairs office chief, said the military was not justifying the error it committed in the raid in Morong.

“We are not rejoicing over the death of De la Cruz… but it’s a validation of our information that Ramon de la Cruz was indeed an NPA member when he was arrested in Morong,” Zagala said.

He said the slain De la Cruz belonged to an armed propaganda unit of the NPA in Bulacan whose task was to “agitate, organize and mobilize the public.”

After his arrest in Morong, Zagala said De la Cruz was a “medic” of the “Sangay Partido para sa Platoon” of the insurgents.