CITY OF MALOLOS—A former security guard on Monday testified that he saw the two missing University of the Philippines (UP) students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño at a detention facility in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija province, where he was taken after he was abducted by suspected soldiers in 2006.
At the resumption of retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr.’s trial for kidnapping and serious illegal detention of the UP students, the witness, Oscar Leuterio, 57, said he was taken by soldiers on April 17, 2006, because of his supposed ties to communist rebels.
Leuterio said he had served as a security guard of a mining company in Doña Remedios Trinidad town in Bulacan province.
On June 27 that year, Leuterio said, he was brought to a house that served as a detention facility in Fort Magsaysay. He said he saw two blindfolded women and a man in the other cells.
“One of the girls was short, while the other one was tall with protruding teeth,” Leuterio told the court.
When presented photographs of Cadapan and Empeño, Leuterio confirmed that they were the girls he saw at the facility, who were referred to as “Tanya” and “Sierra.”
During his detention, Leuterio said, he was once taken blindfolded, to the office of Palparan, then commander of the 7th Infantry Division based in Fort Magsaysay. The lights were turned off and he was kicked and beaten up by a man, he said.
When his blindfold was removed, he said, he saw Palparan in the room.
Leuterio said he was eventually released on Sept. 14, 2006.
When the hearing ended, Palparan told the Inquirer: “It was clear Leuterio was lying. He claimed that the lights were off when he was struck. How could he have known who hit him if the lights were off?”
Lawyer Diosab Formilleza, Palparan’s counsel, said Leuterio gave two different narratives based on his November 2006 and April 16, 2013, affidavits. The first, Formilleza said, gave no exact date when he claimed to have seen the two missing students at the detention facility.
Leuterio told the court he failed to include details that he only recalled during the trial. But he said the new ones were true.
Erlinda Cadapan, mother of Sherlyn, said Leuterio and the prosecution’s first witness, Raymond Manalo, established a connection between Palparan and the missing students.
Leuterio was supposed to testify on April 20, but Bulacan Regional Trial Court Judge Teodora Gonzales suspended the hearing when the witness complained of a bum stomach.