40 rights violations cases in Central Luzon unsolved

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Butch and Corazon Fortuna have been searching for their son Daryl since he and two others were taken by armed men from a Bible study session in Zambales on March 9, 2010.

Elsewhere in Zambales, Roosevelt Miraflores, 60, weeps over his three sons whose bullet-riddled bodies were found after an alleged police operation on June 2, 2010. He said the boys’ camouflage jackets bore neither bullet holes nor blood spatters—forensic evidence expected from a violent encounter.

These two cases top the list of 40 unsolved cases of rights violations in Central Luzon that were documented by Defend-CL as having taken place during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency and the first year of President Aquino’s term.

Defend-CL vice chairperson Aurora Broquil said that from the rate with which these cases were processed by the Commission on Human Rights or dismissed by provincial prosecutors, the Aquino administration had “not been helpful in identifying, arresting or jailing the perpetrators in the police and military.”

The relatives of the Miraflores brothers have implicated the police’s public safety office in Zambales in their murder.

Another case cited by rights advocates involves Senior Superintendent Madzgani Mukaram, a former chief of the police’s public safety office in Pampanga, who was accused of having tortured five men.

The prosecutor said “there may indeed have [been] torture, but there is insufficient evidence indicating Mukaram as the perpetrator.”

EJK

Central Luzon posted the highest number of extrajudicial killings (EJK) during Arroyo’s term, Broquil said.

At least 62 of 305 cases of EJK between 2001 and August 2010 occurred in the region, according to a study jointly commissioned by the Asia Foundation and the US Agency for International Development.

Of 395 victims nationwide, 72 were from Central Luzon.

Broquil said that while Aquino had declared human rights as one of his administration’s concerns, “he lacks genuine decisiveness in laying down a clear and doable framework in addressing human rights cases.”

“While he is decisive in pursuing cases against [Arroyo], he failed to make accountable those human rights violators in the military and police,” Broquil said.

NPA

In Lucena City, Colonel Generoso Bolina, the spokesman of the military’s Southern Luzon Command (Solcom), said the communist New People’s Army (NPA) were responsible for at least 58 cases of rights violations in the Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions this year.

Of the 58 victims, 47 were civilians, 6 were policemen, 4 were militiamen, and 1 was a soldier, Bolina said in a statement.

The Solcom commander, Lieutenant General Roland Detabali, said the NPA was responsible for the death of former Army Corporal Ferdinand Valencia, whose remains were found by government troops on August 2 in Famy, Laguna, with the help of a rebel returnee.

Quoting the victim’s brother, Bolina said Valencia was abducted by the NPA in May from his house in Real, Quezon.

The body was found with a cracked skull and stab wounds. “The Ranger tattoo on his chest was cut with a knife,” Bolina said.—With a report from Delfin Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon