29 May 2007
PNP admits seizing another churchman in Laguna
By Ephraim Aguilar and Marlon RamosInquirer Southern Luzonand TJ Burgonio
in Manila
LEGAZPI CITY—MUR-der charges were filed on Friday against two soldiers linked to the killing of Methodist pastor Isaias Sta. Rosa in Daraga town in Albay last year, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police said yesterday.
The CIDG filed charges against Maj. Marc Ernest Rosal, Arnaldo Manjares (rank unknown) and 10 still unidentified persons in the provincial prosecutor’s office, said Ruben Azañas, CIDG provincial officer.
The charges came as a pastor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) was seized by police intelligence agents in Biñan town in Laguna on Sunday.
Berlin Guerrero, 40, had just come out of the UCCP chapel in Barangay Malaban at about 5:30 p.m. after leading a worship service when he was forced into a van, said Doris Cuario, secretary general of the militant human rights group Karapatan in Southern Tagalog.
Yesterday afternoon, Karapatan said it had located the pastor. Guerrero, a former secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Southern Tagalog, called up his wife at around 4 p.m., saying he was in Camp Gen. Pantaleon Garcia, the Cavite police headquarters in Imus town.
At least 25 church people, including 10 pastors and priests, were among the 864 activists summarily executed since President Macapagal-Arroyo took office in 2001, according to the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) and Karapatan.
Bicol accounted for more than 140 of the killings.
As of May 15, 196 activists were missing, according to Karapatan.
The killings drew condemnation from international groups and countries, prompting President Macapagal-Arroyo to form a commission to look into the murders. The Melo Commission largely blamed the killings on the military.
CIDG provincial officer Azañas said the Firearms and Explosives Office in Camp Crame, the PNP headquarters, had verified that the .45-cal. pistol recovered from the scene of Sta. Rosa’s killing was registered to Manjares, who hails from Barangay Bibingkahan, Sorsogon City.
Robbery charges
The CIDG is preparing robbery charges against the suspects.
Evidence gathered by the 12-member team from the United Methodist Church last year pointed to soldiers of the Army’s 9th Infantry Division as being behind the killing of Sta. Rosa, a member of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Bicol.
The pastor was tied and shot by 10 masked men on Aug. 3 outside his house in Barangay Malobago in Daraga. His body was found beside a stream not far from his house.
Near him lay a dead man wearing a bonnet, black shorts and rubber shoes. Police identified him as Army Cpl. Lordger Pastrana.
Army ID, mission order
Among the items recovered from Pastrana were an identification card showing that he was a member of the 9th ID based in Pili, Camarines Sur, a .45-cal. pistol, a mission order and a cellular phone allegedly taken from Sta. Rosa’s house.
The mission order, dated July 11, 2006, was to expire on Sept. 30, 2006, and was signed by Rosal, according to the NCCP in its report titled “Let the Stones Cry Out: An Ecumenical Report on Human Rights in the Philippines and a Call to Action.”
Sta. Rosa’s younger brother, Jonathan, identified Pastrana as one of the assailants who barged into their house at 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 3, 2006.
Forced to admit as rebels
Before he was taken to the pastor’s house, Jonathan said the armed men forced him and another brother, Ray Sun, to admit that they were members of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Jonathan said the intruders seized him, bound his hands and took him outside. Later, he said, he heard gunshots.
Karapatan welcomed the filing of the murder charges. But Joel Montas, Karapatan-Albay coordinator, said his group would still have to see the evidence gathered by Task Force Usig, the PNP group assigned to look into the killings.
Montas said Karapatan was also preparing a case against the suspects, but Task Force Usig was the first to file one.
“We will see how the evidence we have gathered could still help in the prosecution. It is the obligation of Task Force Usig to handle these cases. However, this time it will be Usig against people in uniform,” Montas said.
He said Karapatan had obtained the sworn affidavits of four witnesses who lived in the village where the crime took place.
It was the second time in five years that soldiers were charged with murder for the murder of activists in Bicol. The first was in 2002 in connection with the murder of youth activist Joel Asejo.
One of the eight accused is still detained while the rest are at large and have gone absent without official leave from the Army.
Van blocked
Supt. Joselito Esquivel Jr., Biñan police chief, said Guerrero was on a tricycle with his wife and their three children when a white Mitsubishi L300 van blocked their path in front of a gasoline station in Barangay Casili.
Esquivel said Guerrero’s abductors were escorted by another group in a white van.
The abductors took the personal belongings of Guerrero’s wife, including her mobile phone, a laptop and the money offerings of the church members during the worship service, he said.
Quoting witnesses, Cuario said the vehicles had no license plates while Guerrero’s abductors “looked like soldiers.”
One of the assailants even pistol-whipped the pastor, he said.
Cuario said the incident came almost two months after two pastors were forcibly taken by still unidentified men outside a UCCP seminary in Dasmariñas, Cavite, on March 29. The abductors released the victims the next day “after they realized that they got the wrong persons,” he said.
‘After Ka Berlin’
“They were really after Ka Berlin,” Cuario said.
In a mobile phone interview, Senior Supt. Fidel Posadas, Cavite police director, said his men arrested Guerrero on the basis of two warrants of arrest for inciting to sedition and murder.
Posadas belied the claims of militant groups that the pastor was abducted. He said the arrest was legal and covered by a court warrant.
He, however, declined to give the details on the cases against Guerrero. “We only have copies of the warrants of arrest. Maybe tomorrow, we can get the copies of the case folders.”
Posadas assured the family and colleagues of Guerrero that the pastor was in good condition.
Death anniversary
Guerrero, his wife and their children were on their way to Calamba City in Laguna to attend a program to commemorate the first death anniversary of murdered UCCP Pastor Noli Capulong.
Capulong, coordinator of the party-list group Bayan Muna in Southern Tagalog, was gunned down by motorcycle-riding men in Barangay Parian in Calamba on May 27, 2006. His murder remains unsolved.
The abduction of Guerrero was condemned by a network of Protestant churches, human rights groups and families of missing activists.
“What’s happening is systematic,” Bishop Eliezer Pascua, UCCP general secretary, said at a joint briefing with church officials and the Guerrero family at the UCCP headquarters in Quezon City.
“This just goes to show that our members are highly persecuted,” Pascua said.
The UCCP believed the abduction was part of the “ongoing crackdown” on militants and activists.
Bayan, the Promotion of Church People’s Response, and the Union Theological Seminary of the Philippines, where Guerrero is enrolled as a student, also decried his abduction.
Marie Hilao-Enriquez, secretary general of the human rights group Karapatan, said the abduction was shameless because it happened during the Week of the Disappeared.
“It’s as if the government is taunting us because this happened during the Week of the Disappeared,” she said in a separate briefing at a restaurant in Quezon City.
Less than 24 hours after he went missing, the pastor called his wife yesterday afternoon to tell her he had been taken to the police camp.
“I’m happy that he’s alive,” Mylene said in a phone interview. With reports from Jaymee Gamil and Niña Catherine Calleja, Inquirer Southern Luzon
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