By Jonathan L. Mayuga & Alladin S. Diega
Conclusion
THE 14-year military rule of President Ferdinand E. Marcos began when he issued Presidential Proclamation 1081 in 1972. It ended in 1986, when Marcos was ousted by an uprising known worldwide as People Power.
According to Amnesty International’s (AI) report in 1981, over 50,000 people were arrested in the first three years of martial law. Almost all of those arrested, AI said, “were detained without charge or trial.”
The AI mission, which visited the Philippines in November and December 1975, found that 6,000 people were still detained nearly three years after then-President Marcos declared emergency rule. “The 1975 mission also found that 71 of the 107 prisoners interviewed alleged that they had been tortured,” the AI report said.
According to Iglesia Filipina Independiente priest Dionito M. Cabillas, there are still 405 political detainees “languishing” in various jails, including the National Bilibid Prison (NBP).
“They are living among ordinary criminals, while their arrest and incarceration is political in nature,” said Cabillas, who is also national coordinator of an organization of political prisoners and former political detainees called Selda.
In September 2011 Selda and other organizations launched the Free All Political Prisoners (FAPPs) campaign to demand for the release of some 400 to 500 political prisoners in the country.
But our demands were ignored by the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III, according to Cabillas.
Aquino’s commitment
OF the 356 political prisoners in detention centers and jails around the country in 2011, 78 were arrested under the Aquino administration, according to the Philippine Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights or Karapatan. Thirty-five of them are women, 10 are elderly and 43 are ill. Karapatan said the number of political prisoners have reached 557, 57 of them are from the Southern Tagalog region.
Even as the Philippine government transitioned to the administration of President Duterte, consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) to the peace process remained in jail despite the Aquino administration’s declared commitment to work for their release.
It would take a former mayor of Davao City to see through that commitment the Aquino administration failed to keep.
Mr. Duterte has acknowledged the existence of political prisoners and promised to release them “through general amnesty.”
Longest time
ONE of the longest-held political prisoners is Juanito Itaas. Not high enough in the hierarchy of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) or the National Democratic Front (NDF), Itaas was not included as one of the CPP-NDF’s consultants to these group’s peace talks with the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).
Itaas was arrested following the killing of US Col. James Rowe in 1989.
According to Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) volunteer Bernardo B. Itucal Jr., the assassination of Rowe was perhaps an embarrassment to the US military. Hence, we find it difficult to secure his release, Itucal said.
When he was killed, Rowe was assigned as the chief of the Army division of the Joint US Military Advisory Group (Jusmag), providing counterinsurgency training for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Rowe, one of only 34 American political prisoners to escape captivity during the Vietnam War, was credited with designing a military course based upon his experience as a prisoner of war.
According to TFDP documents, Itaas was arrested four months after the killing of Rowe.
Court documents said Itaas testified he was allegedly tortured by his captors on August 27 and 28, 1989, in Davao City. He testified that he “was blindfolded and a masking tape was placed on his mouth and that subsequently, he was hit and mauled while a cellophane was placed on his head thus, causing him to loss consciousness.”
Humanitarian ground
ACCORDING to Selda, because the government does not recognize the nature of the arrest and incarceration, political detainees are treated as ordinary criminals.
“It is only under the Duterte administration that the government finally recognizes the existence of political detainees,” Cabillas said.
One of those who advocates are hopeful of release is Jose Ceriales. The 69-year-old prisoner is currently incarcerated in the NBP medium security compound. According to Cabillas, by their account, Ceriales is considered the only political detainee arrested during martial law, while the rest were arrested after 1986.
Accused as a member of the NPA, Ceriales was convicted of multiple murder. He was supposed to be
released along with other political detainees after the fall of Marcos, but his records were destroyed.
“The papers were eaten by white ants, not termites, we were told,” Cabillas said. “Until now, Ceriales is incarcerated and his only hope is to be released on humanitarian ground under the Duterte administration.”
Cabillas’s hopes are pinned on the last meeting by members of the negotiating panels of the GRP and the NDF. He said they were told the peace negotiators agreed to they would work for the release of the political detainees on two grounds.
First is on humanitarian ground where more than a hundred, including women, who are suffering from old age and various illnesses would be released. The second is on the ground of general amnesty, which would need the concurrence of Congress, Cabillas said.
Vigilant tack
HOWEVER, Itucal, now 51, feels the military and the police did not really change from a state “apparatchik.”
The violent nature of the state is still there, he explained citing the instance when the government of Corazon C. Aquino turned against the very group that helped her topple Marcos and end his military rule. Itucal also pointed to the war on drugs by the Duterte administration.
While the current government’s efforts against the menace of drug abuse are commendable, “it should be very conscious in respecting the human rights of [suspected] drug pushers or users because we live in a society under the rule of law.”
He noted that “during the Marcos regime, activists were also considered as a ‘menace’ to society.”
Nonetheless, both he and Cabillas and the groups they represent are on “guarded optimism” that all political prisoners will be released from jail under the Duterte administration.
Hopefully, Itucal said, Mr. Duterte will deliver on his promise.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to meet our comrades outside the prison cells. And soon.”
Image credits: AP/Bullit Marquez