It was brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo, who were allegedly abducted by the military on February 2006, who told human rights group Karapatan that a body of a woman burned found in Labrador in August 2007 could belong to Sherilyn Cadapan.
Cadapan and fellow UP student Karen Empeño and farmer Manuel Merino were abducted allegedly by the military. The three were reportedly seen in the rest house of Master Sergeant Donald Caigas of the 24th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Banog, Bolinao, Pangasinan in 2006.
The Commission on Human Rights, some forensic experts and families of Cadapan and Empeño were present when the burned body was exhumed.
The body will be flown to Manila to gather DNA samples.
Forensics experts from the National Science Research Institute of the University of the Philippines (UP-NSRI) and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) were the ones set to gather the DNA samples.
The UP-NSRI team was said to be headed by forensics experts Dr. Ma. Corazon Ungria and Dr. Raquel Fortun, while the CHR group is led by Dr. Renante Basas. Human rights group Karapatan also brought in Philippine Health Alliance for Human Rights medical expert Dr. Reginald Pamugas.
The Manalo brothers raised this possibility after Manuel Merino, a farmer who was reportedly abducted with Cadapan and fellow UP student Karen Empeño, was purportedly burned by members of the military in Limay, Bataan in November 2006. Raymond said he witnessed the killing of Merino.
Reports of sightings of Cadapan, Empeno and Merino in the rest house of Master Sergeant Donald Caigas of the 24th IB at Barangay Banog, Bolinao, Pangasinan in 2006 also pushed Erlinda Cadapan, mother of Sherlyn, to request for the DNA examination.
Karapatan said that the delayed response from CHR stalled the examination. Public information officer Ruth Cervantes stated that they requested assistance from CHR in October last year, but did not receive any feedback.
Erlinda then sought the help of NSRI in December. NSRI agreed to dispatch their forensics team, but also required the participation of CHR. They said that government representation is part of the protocol in cases where the body is still unidentified.
Search for missing UP students, farmer may end in Bataan
Hopes of finding the remains of two missing UP students and other victims of extra-judicial killings were raised Monday after a former military detachment in Bataan was identified as the place where they may have been killed or buried.
Raymond Manalo, who escaped from an alleged forced detention by elements of the 56th Infantry Batallion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), led a fact-finding team Monday in identifying three graves of possible victims of extra-judicial kilings in a purported former Army detachment here in barangay Bliss, Limay, Bataan.
Manalo said one of these graves is where Manuel Merino, a farmer who was reportedly abducted by the military along with missing UP students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño last June 2006, was buried.
Manalo said he saw members of the 24th Infantry Batallion burn Merino's dead body in a vacant area inside this former Army detachment in Bataan.
"The soldiers led Tatay Manuel [Merino] out of the room where they held us in chains. They said [Gen.] Palparan is just going to talk to him," Manalo said in relating the incident. After a few minutes, however, Manalo heard somebody groan followed by gunshots. Merino was reportedly killed June 10, 2007.
Manalo and his brother, Reynaldo, were allegedly seized by members of the 56th Infantry Batallion on February 14, 2006. They stayed in this Bataan detachment along with Merino, Cadapan, and Empeño from November 2006 to June 2007.
The excavation in this village in Bataan is expected to be finished tomorrow.
If a body is found in one of the graves, it will be sent to the National Forensic Science Research Training Institute for DNA examination.
Forensic pathologist Dr. Rachel Fortun of the University of the Philippines will oversee the DNA testing.
Search for evidence
In a press statement, the human rights group, Karapatan, said Raymond provided them with a sketch of the site where "according to the survivor, he saw Merino being burned and where other captives were killed or brought dead by soldiers."
The Commmission on Human Rights Chair Leila de Lima and representatives of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights joined the fact-finding team led by Karapatan.
"Excavation will be made in search of evidence that could further corroborate the credible testimony of Manalo and help trace the victims and their identities," Karapatan secretary-general Marie Hilao-Enriquez and public information officer Ruth Cervantes, said.
"Manalo's survival is strong evidence that state security forces who formerly occupied the site have used the place as detention area as well as a place to torture and keep incommunicado the victims of enforced disappearance," they said.
The Supreme Court recently upheld a Court of Appeals (CA) ruling which granted a writ of amparo to "escaped desparacidos" Raymond Manalo and his brother, Reynaldo.
The two escaped from their "military abductors after 18 months of detention," Karapatan said.
The CA decision had said "there is now a clear and credible evidence that the three missing persons, Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeño and Manuel Merino, are being detained in military camps and bases under the 7th Infantry Division. Being not held for lawful cause, they should be immediately released from detention."
Karapatan said that "three days after [the CA decision], on September 20, the Philippine Army spokesperson, Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner issued a statement that the three missing persons were nowhere to be found in any Army camp where their relatives and supporters claimed they were detained."
Survivor revisits site where UP students abducted
Manuel Merino reportedly died a few steps away from the last place where he spent most of his remaining days– in a kitchen, where he and fellow alleged abductee Raymond Manalo cooked adobo and kaldereta for the soldiers of the 24th Infantry Battalion in a makeshift detachment at Barangay Bliss, Limay, Bataan.
“We were assigned to cook,” Manalo said. “We made viands from the cows that the soldiers stole,” he told abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak.
Aside from preparing and serving meals, the two of them, along with Manalo’s brother Reynaldo, also cleaned the 300-500 square meter camp and gathered firewood.
The Manalo brothers met Merino in the camp at the same time they were introduced to missing UP students and suspected New People’s Army members Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño. That was in November 2006.
Cadapan, Empeño and Merino were reportedly abducted by members of the military in Hagonoy, Bulacan on June 26, 2006.
Raymond and his brother were allegedly seized from their house in Idlefonso, Bulacan by suspected members of the civilian armed forces geographical unit on February 14 of the same year.
Based on Raymond’s account, the five of them separately made the rounds of the military’s camps and safe houses in Central Luzon before they were taken to the detachment in Barangay Bliss where they spent around seven months holed up in huts that they themselves made.
Almost two years after, however, only one of them would return to the camp alive. The Manalo brothers were able to escape from their captors in July last year.
Raymond retraced his steps to the Bataan detachment Monday to look for the body of his fellow “cook” and friend, whom he fondly calls ‘Tay Manuel.
What detachment?
Death seemed close, according to Raymond, two days after Cadapan and Empeño disappeared from the camp in the first week of June 2007.
“Karen and Sherlyn were put in a bodega (storage room) where their feet were both chained. I saw them because I brought them food,” he said.
Raymond marked the torture site in the almost nonexistent camp Monday, one of the almost 15 areas he located in the green expanse where the detachment was built.
Some of the markers read “kubo ni Kim,” “kubo ni Robin,” kubo ni Edwin and Marnak,” with the names standing as pseudonyms for the soldiers who allegedly held them captive.
The bodega was sandwiched between two mango trees. Raymond said it was the only structure made of hollow blocks, as the rest were made of bamboo and cogon.
The other one which was also made of concrete material was the place of Master Sgt. Donald Caigas in the detachment. “He was the boss in the camp,” Raymond said.
These materials were hardly present in the area, however. Aside from one or two slabs of cement that stuck out from an otherwise prevalent mass of brown soil, there were no other signs which showed that a camp did exist in Barangay Bliss.
It was the same argument that the Armed Forces of the Philippines would raise. They denied that they had a camp in the said site.
Last July 2008, when Leny and Lolita Robiños inspected army camps in Bataan to look for their relative Romulos Robiños and friend Ryan Supan, both reportedly abducted by elements of the 69th IB in Angeles City, Pampanga on November 17, 2006, local army members crossed out Barangay Bliss from their list.
“They were told that the army only has one camp in Bataan. That’s in Barangay Dalae,” Ruth Cervantes, spokesperson of human rights group Karapatan said. Karapatan is currently helping the families of Robiños, Cadapan, Empeño and other loved ones of alleged members of human rights violations find their missing kin.
But Raymond was adamant. He said that he could clearly recall each nook and cranny of the detachment, from the hut where they slept, to the area where Merino was allegedly burnt and buried.
Private land
The detachment, however, was never really that of the army’s, or at least the land where it was built.
One of the reasons why the excavation did not easily push through was the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the government agency which has the authority to probe human rights violations, had a hard time ascertaining who the owner of the camp site is.
“Lands where camps stood are not owned by the military. They are just leased to them. Sometimes there would not even be lease documents,” CHR Chairperson Leila de Lima explained.
Cervantes said that they requested for assistance in the fact-finding mission from the CHR in a dialogue with De Lima last July. After three weeks without response, they sought additional help from Sen. Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero, who heads the Senate human rights committee.
CHR and the Senate committee on human rights eventually found out who the owner was and asked for his permission to dig his land to search for Merino’s body.
It was not clear, however, if the owner of the land knew that the land he leased to the army was turned into a camp site.
Local folks in Limay reportedly said that they saw soldiers enter the area. SPO1 Honorio Esplena, one of the police officers who guarded the site during the excavation earlier, said that he did hear people talk about a detachment site in Barangay Bliss.
He, however, did not personally see it nor did he chance upon any soldier who belonged to the 24th IB.
No family
Now with thick foliage surrounding the area, it’s almost hard to see the far end of the site, a good 20 meters away from the supposed gate one of the detachment, where Merino was allegedly buried.
But Raymond said there was not much grass and plants last year, not enough to block his view of the camp’s exit, at least.
“I could see through the space in the bodega’s ceiling,” Raymond said, as he relayed what transpired the night Merino died.
After Cadapan and Empeño disappeared from the camp, the three of them – Raymond, Reynaldo and Merino – replaced them in the storage room. They were also bound in chains, he added.
They were in the room less than two nights. Then Merino was dragged outside, naked, handcuffed and blindfolded. Raymond said he heard the soldiers told the distressed farmer that then Maj. Gen. Palparan would just talk to him. He was led to the second guard house, which was just a stone’s throw away from the kitchen.
But Merino never returned. The last time Raymond saw him, his body was allegedly engulfed in flames.
Raymond easily saw the spot where Merino was reportedly buried. He went on to identify two other graves, which were almost 5-10 meters away from each other.
The 27-year-old Bulacan native said that he witnessed the soldiers of the 24th IB bring 6-8 people to the camp, some of them already dead, some of them yet to be allegedly killed, raising the possibility that other bodies could be found in the area.
As of Monday, items such as shoes, seven bottles, and burnt cloth were found from two of the sites. No body has yet been found.
Aside from Raymond, however, no other person has expressed an earnest desire to recover Merino’s body. Cervantes said that up until now, no one has stepped forward and introduced themselves as Merino’s family member or friend.
“It’s hard to locate his family. Remember that we just included him in the petition for the writ of amparo for Cadapan and Empeño because no one would file a petition for him,” she said.
Closure
The current fact-finding mission came seven months after a cadaver believed to be either that of Cadapan and Empeño was exhumed in Barangay Bolo, Pangasinan.
Results of a DNA examination by the University of the Philippines-Natural Science Research Institute revealed that it belonged to neither, however.
Dr. Rachel Fortun would oversee the DNA testing of the bodies that would be found in Limay, Bataan.
Erlinda Cadapan and Concepcion Empeño, mothers of the two missing UP students, said they are prepared to see the bodies of their daughters from the graves.
“We have already accepted the fact they could already be gone,” Empeño said. “What we need now is just closure.”
For Raymond, however, closure could come only in two ways: that Merino’s body be found, and the military admit that it once used Barangay Bliss, Limay, Bataan as a prison for their alleged captives. (With reports from Atom Araullo and Purple Romero / ABS-CBN, Newsbreak)
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