PRWC
Youth activists Job Abednego David, Peter del Monte and Alia Encela were abducted last September 19 by armed agents of the Marcos regime in Sitio Malaglag, Barangay Lisap, Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro on September 19. After 15 days, the 4th IB has admitted the three activists are under their custody. As usual, the military is claiming that the three are members of the NPA.
The Bongabong 3 are victims of the military’s modus operandi of abducting social activists and subjecting them to torture under secret detention. The AFP then arbitrarily accuses them of being members of the NPA and maliciously tagging them as “terrorists” as if this would justify their crime of illegal detention and torture. They are not properly charged before any court and are denied counsel of their choice.
This is the same modus operandi used recently against Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro, environmental activists, who were abducted by the 7th IB in Orion, Bataan, secretly detained for 13 days, and later presented as “NPA surrenderees.” The AFP would have gotten away with their crimes if not for the courage of Tamano and Castro who exposed how they were abducted, illegally detained, subjected to torture and threats, and forced to sign false statements.
Across the country, there are growing number of cases of individuals (including social activists, environmentalists, as well as underground revolutionaries and NPA fighters) being abducted by military agents and secretly detained in military camps and “safe houses” in violation of their basic civil and political rights, as well as international humanitarian law. These crimes are being carried out by military and police forces with impunity, emboldened as they are by the 2020 Anti-Terror Law.
All these cases must be exposed and the fascists made to account for their crimes.
