CHR checks another torture report, is told it’s false

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Philippines—A team from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Wednesday inspected a detention facility in Tanay, Rizal, after receiving a report that at least two of the detainees there had been tortured by the police.

But the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) police force, which came under fire following the discovery of a secret lock-up jail in

Biñan City, Laguna last week, quickly denied that the detainees in Rizal were being maltreated.

Chief Supt. Jesus Gatchalian, regional police chief, said he immediately asked the Rizal police director and the Tanay police chief to check this out and both said “it was not true.”

He said the report on Tanay was false.

Supt. Noel Verzosa, Tanay police chief, said the latest torture report involved a male detainee and his son, who were both charged with rape.

They were arrested on Jan. 27 and were being detained at the Tanay police station along with 32 other crime suspects.

As far as the police were concerned, Verzosa said the detainees themselves did not file a formal complaint at the CHR, which sent a team to inspect the facility on Wednesday morning.

“It’s just not possible. We have a small facility here crowded with detainees. We also do not have any secret cell,” Verzosa said, in a separate phone interview.

Gatchalian added that the wife of the elder rape suspect herself denied that her husband and son were tortured by the authorities.

The CHR earlier released a report about a secret facility in Laguna where crime suspects were allegedly maltreated. Along with it was a picture of a ‘torture roulette’ that the policemen allegedly used for the so-called “wheel of torture” game with their prisoners.

This prompted the shutdown of the detention cell that used to be managed by Laguna police intelligence branch.

Twelve policemen, two of whom were ranking police officers, were removed from their posts and were charged administratively.