US activist who accused Philippine soldiers of abduction, torture returns to Manila

Melissa Roxas.

MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 19, 2009) – A US woman who accused Philippine soldiers of abducting and torturing her is returning to Manila on Monday to pursue criminal charges against her captors.

The Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights said it provide protective custody to Melissa Roxas upon her from the US.

The human rights body said Roxas is coming back to attend the next hearing on her petition for a Writ of Amparo before the Court of Appeals. She will also testify before the Commission on Human Rights.

The US Embassy in Manila is also investigating the Roxas’ accusation.
She has accused the military of abducting her on May 19 and subjecting her to physical and mental torture. Two other left-wing activists, Juanito Carabeo and Edward Jandoc, were also abducted in the province on May 19.

Roxas was released six days later and has since then went back to the US.
In her petition for a Writ of Amparo, Roxas said she was detained blindfolded and in handcuffs in what she presumed was the Army’s Fort Magsaysay camp in Laur town in Nueva Ecija province, north of Manila.

There, Roxas said her captors repeatedly told her that she was being held because she was a member of the communist rebel group New People’s Army.

“This public hearing by the Commission on Human Rights will be carried out in line with its Constitutional mandate, to investigate human rights violations. The culture of impunity in the Philippines must be brought to an end.”

“These individuals and groups who carry out abductions and torture must be held to account. The government must take meaningful action to protect human rights in the Philippines, not merely in statements and on paper, but also in reality,” said lawyer Leila De Lima, who heads the Commission on Human Rights.

She said it is vital that the survivors of human rights violations are protected. Their safety and well-being, she said, must be safeguarded so they can be allowed to tell their stories and shed light on the true situation in the Philippines today.

“One of the best ways to help ensure the safety of Miss Roxas is to allow her to tell her story to the Filipino people and to the world. That is one more reason these hearings before the Court of Appeals and the Commission on Human Rights as well as the robust participation of media, are so important. Transparency and accountability will help keep Miss Melissa Roxas safe, and they will help keep all of us safe as well,” said De Lima.

The Philippine military has tried to cover up the scandal and even accused Roxas of staging her own abduction. (With a report from Mari Cruz)

Melissa Roxas: ‘Talking About What Happened Is Like Going Back to That Dark Place’

Melissa Roxas during the press conference in Los Angeles. (Courtesy: Bulatlat.com and http://www.arkibongbayan.org/2009/2009-06-June02-Melissa/melissaroxas.htm)

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino-American Melissa Roxas finally broke her silence and recounted her ordeal in the hands of the military.

Roxas and her two companions, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Jandoc, were abducted in the afternoon of May 19 in sitio Bagong Sikat, barangay Kapanikian, La Paz town, in Tarlac, a province just north of Manila.

Roxas was freed after six days, followed by Juanito Carabeo. The family of Jandoc said he had texted them that he was already free but he has not been seen.

Speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles broadcast simultaneously online, Roxas read portions of her affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court. Her counsel filed a petition for writ of amparo before the Supreme Court days after her release. The Court of Appeals is still hearing the petition.

Roxas said her captors repeatedly interrogated and tortured her. She said she was also handcuffed to a bed.

They accused her of being a member of the New People’s Army (NPA) and that they were “instruments of God” whose mission was to bring communist rebels back to the fold of law. “My God does not torture people,” Roxas told them.

“Talking about what happened is like going back to that dark place,” Roxas said. She has been seeking medical treatment for the physical and psychological trauma she suffered.

Roxas, Jandoc and Carabeo were volunteer health workers preparing for a medical mission in Tarlac when they were abducted, according to Bayan in Manila.

Though she has not received threats since she came back to the United States, where she was born, Roxas said she continues to fear for the safety of Carabeo and Jandoc. “I have to live with that fear every day,” she said.

Roxas went back to the US to be reunited with her family there and to seek the treatment for the effects of the abduction and torture.

“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any one else ever again,” Roxas said.

"Lies"

Reacting to the statement of the government lawyers that the abduction was stage-managed, Roxas said: “No amount of their lies or denials can deny the truth.”

Arnedo Valera, her lawyer in the US, said the Philippine government should be ashamed for their highly irresponsible and immoral remarks about Roxas’s case.

During the first hearing at the Court of Appeals last week, state prosecutors said the abduction was stage-managed by the victim. Earlier, the Philippine Human Rights Commission led by Secretary Eduardo Ermita claimed the incident was a mere fabrication.

“Melissa was tortured. That is a fact,” Valera said, adding that the Philippine government only wants to escape liability for claiming otherwise.

Valera said that instead of lying, the least the Philippine government should have done is to surface the abductors. “They know what they have done to Melissa,” he said.

“Instead of following the rule of law [on the case of Roxas], the rule of the jungle prevails,” the lawyer added.

Valera said they will seek before a US federal court punitive and compensatory damages against Roxas’s identified assailants or the Arroyo government in the absence of named assailants.

They will also file a private complaint before the US Department of State’s Human Rights Desk against the Philippine government for the violation of the fundamental rights of a US citizen. Valera said Melissa will also file complaints before the appropriate United Nations agencies for violations of the International Covenant Against Torture, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Roxas said she will be exercising all of her rights. She said she is willing to pursue the petition she filed in the Philippines even if that means she would have to appear in a Manila court.

Rhoda Ramiro, secretary-general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-US chapter said Roxas’s case is not isolated, noting the pattern of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and abductions in the Philippines.

Citing data from human-rights group Karapatan, Ramiro said that from 2001 to March 2009, there have been 1,017 victims of extrajudicial killings, 201 victims of enforced disappearances, 203 victims of abduction and 1,010 victims of torture.

Ramiro said state agents carried out these atrocities as part of the Arroyo administration’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya.

What is more infuriating, Ramiro said, is that the hard-earned taxes they pay to the US government is being used to commit abuses against Melissa and other victims of state-sponsored violence in the Philippines.

The US remains as the top source of military aid for the Philippines, where the US government keeps an undetermined number of troops for so-called military exercises in the south and elsewhere.

Critics have said these exercises have spawned numerous human-rights atrocities. (By Ronalyn V. Olea, Human Rights Watch / Bulatlat.com)


Link: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/06/28/melissa-roxas-talking-about-what-happened-is-like-going-back-to-that-dark-place/

FilAm activist accuses military of torture

MANILA, Philippines – (Philippine Daily Inquirer / June 2, 2009) - A Filipino-American activist who went missing for six days has claimed that she was tortured by military operatives and asked the Supreme Court for protection.

In her petition for a Writ of Amparo, Melissa Roxas said she was detained blindfolded and in handcuffs in what she presumed was Fort Magsaysay in Laur town, Nueva Ecija province, a major military camp in the north.

There, Roxas said her captors repeatedly told her that she was being held because she was a member of the CPP-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army).

Fort Magsaysay is over an hour-long drive from La Paz town, Tarlac province, where Roxas and two other left-wing activists, Juanito Carabeo and Edward Jandoc, were abducted last May 19. Jandoc remains missing.

Named respondents in Roxas’ petition were: President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Victor Ibrado, Philippine National Police Chief Director General Jesus Verzosa, and Army Chief Lieutenant General Delfin Bangit.

Roxas’ lawyer, Rex Fernandez, filed the petition before the high tribunal on Tuesday.

“The distance of the travel and the sounds heard by petitioner [Roxas] in the place where the petitioner and the two men were brought, as well as the buildings described by petitioner, are places inside Fort Magsaysay,” according to the petition.

Roxas recounted her ordeal in the petition, saying: “I heard construction activities – blowtorching, hammering and the construction bustle – and these stopped in the late afternoon and I also heard gun firing as though in a firing range and planes taking off and landing and it was loud and I could also hear goats bleating.”

The activist said she slept light on her first night there, and in the morning, she was interrogated without being served breakfast or lunch. She said she was also not allowed to see a lawyer.

“I was asked repeatedly if I knew why I was there and was told by them that I was abducted because I was a member of the CPP-NPA,” she said.

She said her captors told her that “it was because of people like me who are costing the government so much money and people like me are the ones who are making it difficult for the government.”

Roxas said several men took turns in interrogating her, including a certain RC and a certan Dex, whom she called as her "religious interrogators" because they only discussed religion and the evils of communism to her.

She said she sought for a certain Rose, the female in the next barracks who helped her take a bath, with the plan of finally talking to her, "to delay the expected torture."

Throughout the interrogation, Roxas refused to talk and kept telling the men that she had rights.

“I did not answer and he would hit me on the chest strongly and I would lose breath and gasped for air after and then he would press my throat with his thumb and say ‘Huh…huh…huh!’ and I would gag and then he would hit me on my jaws, ringing my ears and numbing my jaws,” Roxas said.

“I would see a flash of white bright light and ringing in my ears and again the pressure to my throat with the ‘Huh … huh…huh.’ And saying to me, ‘ayaw mo pa din magsasalita [you still don’t want to talk]’ and then punched me in my rib cage and I crumpled but the other men forced me up. This torture continued and every time I crumpled the other men would force me up,” she said in a sworn affidavit.

Roxas continued, “I was having a streaming thought that I was going to die there and then, they held my feet and my hands down and doubled up plastic bags were pulled down on my head and face and closed on my neck and I started to suffocate and I could not breath anymore and I was seeing white and thinking I was going to die and then he released the hold and I could breathe but I was faint and weak [lantang lanta] and he patted me in the back and several men carried me to my cell.”

She said she was asked to sign a document and when she refused to, she was brought to another room where the interrogator “gripped and pressed my right shoulder hard.”

“It was very painful because there was a dislocation and he knew I had that dislocation and when he was telling me that I was hardheaded he pounded his pointer finger on my forehead and it hurt," she said.

When she was released, Roxas said her captors gave her a SIM card so that they could contact her. As they dropped her off a few feet from her house, she said her captors also warned her against contacting the human rights group Karapatan.

She said her abductors also warned her that they would monitor all her movements. They also took her memory card, iPod music player, laptop, journal, sphygmomanometer, stethoscope and P15,000 in cash.

“I was so afraid to go out believing that they were just around monitoring me that I just stayed inside the room not even going out of that room…” she said.

Roxas said her cousin threw away the SIM card but she kept the clothes, handcuffs, and a piece of paper containing an email address and password that her captors had created for her, which would be used as evidence.

“There is credible basis to say that Melissa was abducted by the military as part of the government’s counter-insurgency operations. The abduction and torture were clear violations of her rights. It is despicable and those involved must be made accountable,” said Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes, Jr.

Reyes said that the matter has been brought to the attention of the US embassy in Manila.

Roxas bore bruises when she was surfaced last week, said Doctor Reggie Pumagas of the Health Action for Human Rights. (By Tetch Torres, Thea Alberto, Lira Dalangin-Fernandez / INQUIRER.net)


Link: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view/20090602-208434/FilAm-activist-accuses-military-of-torture