Quezon activist escapes from alleged abductors

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LUCENA CITY, Philippines—On the eve of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program’s 24th anniversary, a peasant organizer and human rights worker in Quezon was abducted by still unidentified persons but eventually managed to escape, an official of a militant peasant group in Southern Tagalog alleged Friday.

Axel Pinpin, secretary general of Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK), said that at around 10 a.m. someone hit Franklin Barrera, 18, with a hard object from behind and forced him inside a red van on Yumul Street, Barangay Gomez in Lopez, Quezon.

Barrera became unconscious and found himself in a house in Barangay San Isidro near the Army’s 85th Infantry Battalion detachment, Pinpin said in a phone interview.

Pinpin said Barrera managed to escape through the backdoor and is now confined in a hospital in Atimonan, Quezon.

Pinyin said his organization planned to formally report the incident to the police later Friday.

Pinpin identified Barrera as a farmer organizer in Quezon province and convenor of the “Save Bondoc Peninsula Movement”, an alliance organized to stop human rights violations by state security forces in Bondoc Peninsula.

He suspected that the perpetrators of the failed abduction were “elements of the military.”

Colonel Eduardo Año, commander of the Army’s 201st Brigade operating in Quezon, advised militant groups not to be too fast in their accusations against military men.

He said his office had yet to receive a report on the alleged abduction.

“I invite Mr. Barrera’s associates to come to my office and provide me with information. I assure them that if we find out that soldiers were involved, I will personally act on the matter,” Año said over the phone.

Pinpin said the incident was only one of many cases of human rights violations in the province since the Armed Forces of the Philippines supposedly deployed eight battalions in the area.

“The Aquino government obviously wants to preempt the people’s alliance campaign that will expose the real characteristic of its ‘people centered’ counter-insurgency program dubbed as Oplan Bayanihan,” he said.