The Story of Torture Victims

By: Atty. Algmar Latiph

15 February 2012

NOTE: This is an actual event. They are pro

bono clients of the Muslim Legal Assistant Foundation, Inc. and with collaboration and coordination with Mindanao Human Rights Center. They finally attained their freedom on April 30, 2012. Their narrations were lifted entirely from the affidavit submitted during the Preliminary Investigation. On Valentines Day (2012), the court dismissed the case in favor of the two torture victims while their cousin still stands on trial. Their stories must be told.

They are dreamers just like you and me, and almost all of us. They are hopeful, and are hoping for a bright future for they do not lack ambitions. They want to make their lives more meaningful, to help their aging parents. One day they see themselves as happy fathers, with their own family, wives and children. They also dream that one day peace will rule in their place. A dream they think is more elusive than their own personal dreams. But dreams are so nil at the beginning. They live in a conflict zone in Maguindanao. They are farmers and with educational attainment of Grade 3 and Grade 5. Their parents are not that financially capable, they were not lucky to finish basic education. There is no establishments in their place where they could be employed. The limited resources in their place of birth made their dreams nightmares. They are not giving up. They want to attain and achieve more. With their parents limited resources, they flew to capital, Manila and then to Taguig City sharing a tiny roomwith three occupants. A room belonged to their cousin. In the big cities of Metro Manila, they believe that opportunities are wider. But their objective is farther. They want to work abroad where salaries are huge. There are hopeful despite of their low educational background. Taguig City in Maharlika Village, predominantly populated by Muslims from Mindanao. They belonged to the bulked marginalized

people. They have common storieslacking choices and lacking opportunities, the more industrialized city is the only option to make a little bleak of hope to make their dreams come true. Their dreams became nightmares. One early, so early morning the two brothers and their cousin were awakened by a nightmare. Law enforcers broke-in to their room, no warrant of arrest, no search warrant and without any lawful cause. They were forcibly abducted. Then taken to place where injuries were inflicted upon their young bodies, their torturers aim is was to break their sane minds. These madmen believed that by driving the captives to madness, they can correctly elicit genuine and correct answers to their questions. They adopt pain and suffering as an instrument of enforcing the law. This is their story:
On March 3, 2010 at 1:30 a.m. at Block 142, Lot 42 San Diego St., Central Bicutan, Taguig City while inside my (Mujahid) room and sleeping, I was awakened by loud noise caused by bashing in our front door. I also heard someone screaming and shouting: "minamaso yung lock ng metal gate. With only a shorts I Mujahid was wearing then, I run to the door. I was surprised to encounter men wearing camouflaged uniform who were destroying our door. With no warning they pulled me to the street in front of the door, then dragged and pushed me to the floor of the street with my head facing the floor cement. My face hit the floor. Then someone shackled me with a plastic handcuff while the other stepped on my head and shouted to me not to look up. Subsequently, when the uniformed men opened the doors of the front door of the house, they intruded into a room and forcibly broke open the door. It was our Abdulrahaman and Juher room with two separate beds inside. We were sleeping on our respective bed. We were then wearing maong bdulrahman and briefs Juher. They bodily carted us away from our bed while we were still sleeping. We were awakened when we felt that someone was carrying us. Then they drawn us to the street in front of the house. Thereafter, we Abdulrahaman and Juher were pushed to the floor of the street with our head facing the cemented floor. Our face were hurt when it hit the hard cement of the street. There were handcuffs wrapped around our waist with our hands put behind our backs. The handcuffs consisted of plastic strips with "teeth" that

you can only tighten and never loosen. We were forbidden to look up and prohibited to ask questions. We could not sit or look up because someone was stepping on our heads. Despite of these, we saw men with bonnets on their head. Immediately, we uhr and Abdulrahman were forced to board a vehicle parked across the street. The vehicle had an entrance at its back. Inside, they suddenly thrust us to lie down with our bellies on the floor of vehicle. We felt the heat of the floor. On the other hand, I Mujahid was made to board a vehicle "sa gitna yung pasukan". During the course of these illegal arrest, no warrant of arrest was shown to us. Later, we discovered that the men who arrested us and, as admitted by them in the Reply were: PINSP ROMMEL MACATLANG, PINSP RODEL CASTALONE, SPO2 ANDY PALMIANO, SPO2 PALMINO TUGADE, JR., PO3 RIZALDY DELA CRUZ, PO2 MAXIMO SEDA, PO2 LYNDON BACOLOR, PO1 MICAHEL CAMILLO, and PO1 RINGO MEDALLA. Torture inflicted upon the person of Juher: When I Juher arrived in our unknown destination, I was immediately brought into a bare room with no windows. I walked around inside the room. Then, "binasa agad yung paa ko." One of them held my foot and placed electric wires on my toe. Momentarily, my body suffered shocked caused by electric charged from the wires attached to my toe. Each time I was electrocuted, I was asked questions like: terrorista ka ba? Or member ka ba ng MILF?. There were series of electrocution as many as questions they asked. After the electrocution, my head was repeatedly dunked into the water inside a container. Again there were series of questions they asked similar to that during my electrocution. "Pag yung parang mamamatay/malulunod na ako, itataas nila ang ulo ko. " They did the drowning of my face inside the container as part of their interrogations to force me to admit the questions they were asking. There was a brief moment of silence, then I thought that my painful suffering was over. I was wrong. They brought a plastic bag. I was placed over my head it was tied with a rubber band around my neck. I was again asked with the same line of questioning. I was brought up to a point of suffocation. Plastic bag was removed when I was almost going to pass out. This painful ceremony continued with the same line of questions were repeated over and over again.

All through out, I was beaten by them. They hit my sex organ by a chain. In order to release me from the pain and torture, I obliged and admitted questions they were asking. Despite of that they were still torturing me. After these series of torture, I was brought to another room. I had to pass a corridor where the sunlight was very bright. I felt it. All this time, my eyes were covered by the bonnet, my hands were tied and I only had my underwear, brief, covering my body. Then I was boarded into a vehicle at the back of the vehicle. The trip took about an hour, it was slow. The car sometimes stops. When I arrived, the men told me that I am already in Camp Crame, Quezon City. On March 8, 2010, despite of the lapse of five days since the time of my torture on March 3, 2010, the trace of torture in my body was detected. The Medical Evaluation of Torture, Physical Injury and Ill-Treatment conducted by Narciso Volatire g. Maniquis, Jr. of the Commission on Human Rights dated March 8, 2010 disclosed that: IX. INTERPRETATIONS AND FINDINGS: The above physical injuries sustained by the subject is related to ill-treatment dealt him. Because the subject was being forced to answer questions like affliction to the MILF, bombing buildings, murder, etc. while being detained against his will; such act satisfies the criteria fro torture as defined under the UN Convention Against Torture. Copy of medical examination is hereto attached as Annex B and made integral part hereof. Torture inflicted upon the person Abdulrahman: Moments later, they brought me into a room. They put plastic bag on my Abdulrahaman head and they tied it with a rubber band so that water will not leak though my neck. They put water on the plastic bag, it suffocated me, I could not breath because of the water. They asked me question such as: terrorista ka ba? Or member ka bang MILF? Later, they put a container filled with water in front of me. Again I was asked with the same series of questions. They held my

head and pushed it unto the container. I could not breath; I was suffocated by the volume of the water inside the container. Thereafter, they put water on my feet. Then they attached wires on my toe. Suddenly, I felt the pain of electric shock on my body due to the electricity from wires they placed on my toe. They, again, asked me those series of questions. They beat my body with hard objects and hit my genital organ with a piece of wood that hurt me much. Because of the pain inflicted and the simultaneous and successive questions they asked me, I admitted every question asked in order the tortures and punishments inflicted upon to stop. After the torture, I was loaded into a vehicle. My head was wrapped be a shawl in addition to the bonnet. The trip from the place where we were torture to our destination was nearly an hour. On March 8, 2010, despite of the lapse of five days since the time of my torture on March 3, 2010, the trace of torture in my body was detected. Thus, Medical Evaluation of Torture, Physical Injury and Ill-Treatment conducted by Narciso Volatire g. Maniquis, Jr. of the Commission on Human Rights dated March 8, 2010 disclosed that: IX. INTERPRETATIONS AND FINDINGS: The above physical injuries sustained by the subject is related to ill-treatment dealt him. Because the subject was being forced to answer questions like affliction to the MILF, bombing buildings, murder, etc. while being detained against his will; such act satisfies the criteria fro torture as defined under the UN Convention Against Torture. Copy of medical examination is hereto attached as Annex C and made integral part hereof. Torture inflicted upon the person of Mujahid: . I Mujahid was brought into a room with windows and a bed with a foam. I was left their by the men who arrested me. One of them warned: "May mga itatanong ako sayo mamaya, umayos ka ng sagot." After a short while, I heard screams from an adjacent area. I observed that whenever the men left my room, I would hear screams. Later, the men brought a container filled with water. One of them told me "luhod ka." My head was repeatedly submerged into

the container with the water in it. When I felt like I was going to drown, the man took out my head from the water. In this torturous moment there was one man assigned to me to do the drowning of my head into the water. There were other men who were watching while I was being drown into the water. I observed that some of them were taking notes while watching my terrifying pain. During these excoriating time, I was repeatedly asked about my name and I was made to enumerate all my relatives as well as the lines of questions they and asked Juher and Abdulrahman. Every time I could not answer their questions I was beaten. I was tortured for about a day and was left alone in the place where they torture me. Later, they gave me fresh cloth. I was boarded onto a vehicle "na parang bago" the seats were soft and comfortable. They put bonnet on my head. The vehicle moved and I was told later by one of the men that "nasa crame na tayo" when the vehicle arrived. On March 8, 2010, despite of the lapse of five days since the time of my torture on March 3, 2010, the trace of torture in my body was detected. Thus, Medical Evaluation of Torture, Physical Injury and Ill-Treatment conducted by Narciso Volatire g. Maniquis, Jr. of the Commission on Human Rights dated March 8, 2010 disclosed that: IX. INTERPRETATIONS AND FINDINGS: The above physical injuries sustained by the subject is related to ill-treatment dealt him. Because the subject was being forced to answer questions like affliction to the MILF, bombing buildings, murder, etc. while being detained against his will; such act satisfies the criteria fro torture as defined under the UN Convention Against Torture. Copy of medical examination is hereto attached as Annex D and made integral part hereof. Common allegations on Torture When we arrived in Camp Crame, we were taken one by one into a room. Once inside the room, our bonnets were taken off. But even after removing them did not allow us to open our eyes. After that we were ordered "dilat and mata!" When we opened our eyes, we were squinting and hurt because of the flashes

of camera. We could not see the face of the person taking the pictures since the face was obscured by the camera. There were placards put just below our faces with our names written therein, someone was holding these placards made of cardboards. Our respective names were on the placards with some peculiarity: another names were put beside our name as aliases. We do not know where did they get these aliases. They were never our nicknames neither aliases as we do not have aliases. After our pictures we were taken, we were ordered to sign something that we could not understand. The documents were not explained to us. When I Abdulrahman queried what was that documents I was told "Ah, sa medical lang to". There was a person guiding our hands pointing to a blank space where we would to sign. They also took our fingerprints while holding our hands from the ink pad to the thumb mark space. It turned out that this document was Booking Information. We were not together during the picture taking, the placing of signatures and thumb marks were taken separately from each other. After the picture taking, they told us to close our eyes again. The bonnets were again placed over our faces. Subsequently, we were placed in another area and they ordered us to remove our respective bonnets. When we open our eyes, we surprisingly saw each other for the first time since our unlawful arrest on March 3, 2010. We broke into tears when we hesitantly recounted our torturous experiences. The torture of drowning in a container filled with water, suffocating on a plastic bag full of water tied to our neck, electric shocks attached to our toes, and the beatings and inflictions of woods and chains unto our genitals. I Juher is a farmer with educational attainment of Grade 3, Mujahid, also a farmer, has only reached Grade 5 and Abdulrahman, a farmer, a Grade 6. Except for Mujahid we have our respective family. Though we are lowly farmers, less in life and could be considered as illiterate but human dignity was also denied to us by these arresting policemen. Freedom and liberty was not a dim hope in our minds since we know that we are not criminals. But these policemen stripped us of our any sense of dignity.

We were taken on March 4, 2010 to the Department of Justice in Padre Faura Street, Manila. A lawyer (whose name we later discovered as Atty. Rosemarie Gonzales) were imposed upon us as our lawyer to defend us. We were not asked if we wanted to engage counsel of our own choice. She made us sign a document saying that if we wanted to be heard we should sign that document. (It turned out that it was a Waiver of Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code). We do not understand that it was a waiver of our right to file cases of arbitrary detention against our captors. After that proceedings in DOJ, we were returned back to Camp Crame but they did not let us get out of the vehicle. Nagusap sila then we were brought to Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City where we are now detained.

At the Inquest in the DOJ, they were assisted by a lawyer from Public Attorneys Office who executed a Counter-Affidavit that outrageously made them admit the unfounded crimes charged against them: Possession of Firearms and a criminal act that happened nearly a decade ago. Fortunately, the PAOs Counter-Affidavit was stricken out from the records. Nonetheless, the DOJ filed an Information against them for Illegal Possession of Firearms and Explosives. A motion was later filed for the dismissal of the case on the ground that the brothers were minors at the time the fictitious crimes occurred. On Valentines Day, MUSLAF received a resolution from the Court granting the motion. The two brothers case was dismissed while their cousin is still in jail to face trial. Regrettably, they may not regain their freedom. There is still a pending case happened several years ago against them. It is a case where their names does not appear and mention. It was the case used to have them searched and arrested without lawful warrant issued by a court. They are not even implicated as John Does. They are just few of the torture victims whose stories have yet to be told.