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Agusan del Sur families of desaparecidos score victory in court
The families of victims of enforced disappearance in Trento, Agusan del Sur scored this morning, 18 July 2008, a landmark victory in court. Judge Dante Luz N. Viacrucis of the Regional Trial Court Branch 6, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur convicted accused Corporal Rodrigo L. Billones who led elements of the 62nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in abducting six workers of the Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) on 14 October 2000.
AGUSAN DEL SUR FAMILIES OF DESAPARECIDOS SCORE VICTORY IN COURT
The families of victims of enforced disappearance in Trento, Agusan del Sur scored this morning, 18 July 2008, a landmark victory in court. Judge Dante Luz N. Viacrucis of the Regional Trial Court Branch 6, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur convicted accused Corporal Rodrigo L. Billones who led elements of the 62nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in abducting six workers of the Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) on 14 October 2000.
In his decision, Judge Viacrucis found Cpl. Billones “guilty beyond reasonable doubt as an accomplice in the Kidnapping and Serious Illegal Detention of Romualdo Orcullo, Jovencio Lagare, Arnold Dangquiasan, Joseph Belar, Diosdado Oliver, and Artemio Ayala, he is hereby sentenced, for each of the six victims, to suffer the indeterminate penalty of imprisonment ranging from nine (9) years of prision mayor medium, as minimum, to fifteen )15) years of reclusion temporal medium, as maximum. He shall indemnify the heirs of each of the six victims the sum of P50,000 as life indemnity and P50,000 as moral damages for said heirs’ pain and anguish at the loss of their loved ones.”
Billones has been under preventive detention since 28 June 2001.
The six PICOP workers were abducted on 14 October 2000. Two months later, the victims’ relatives sought the help of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) – Northern Mindanao Region (NMR). On 13 November 2001 the relatives with the help of FIND formally filed a petition for habeas corpus and eventually a complaint for serious illegal detention and kidnapping in the absence of a law penalizing enforced disappearance.
The six workers have been missing since the night they were abducted and are among the 2,107 reported victims of enforced disappearance in the Philippines from the Marcos regime to the Macapagal Arroyo administration. The six were suspected of being members or sympathizers of the New People’s Army (NPA). It was reported that a few months before their abduction, NPA rebels staged an ambush in their area that killed a military major.
Witnesses testified in court that the victims had been heavily tortured, and were tied with a rope and their heads smashed with iron pipes that caused their death.
As to the other soldiers of the 62nd Infantry Battalion, 8th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army who were implicated by prosecution witness Sergeant Exequias Duyogan, the court ruled that “there is cause now for the Department of Justice to start an inquiry into their criminal culpability, the perpetrators identified by Sgt. Duyogan as follows:
- Bachecha, Cagadas, Castaneda, Angel Perilla, Patrimonio, Pitos and Sgt. Saballa, who manhandled and herded the victims at gunpoint from the videoke bar to the army camp;
- 1st Lt. Enrico Calumag and Col. Eutiquio Mumar Cabando, Jr.: the former being the senior officer in the camp who, according to Sgt. Duyogan, reported by radio the apprehension of the six suspects to the latter, who instructed that what they did to NPA suspects Chris Duenas and Roberto Papintahan, who were slain in Desamparados, Talacogon, should also be done to the six captives;
- Pfc. Bienvenido Veto, Sgt. Cesar Polito, Pfc. Ronda and Sgt. Sabala for smashing the heads of the six victims with iron pipes, killing them.”
In her State of the Nation Address last year, President Arroyo urged Congress to enact laws addressing political violence such as those “reserving the harshest penalties for the rogue elements in the uniformed services who betray public trust and bring shame to the greater number of their colleagues who are patriotic.”
FIND has been lobbying for the immediate enactment of a law that would define and penalize enforced disappearance as a special crime committed by public officials or persons in authority and the signing and ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Wilma Q. Tizon
Secretary-General
Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND)
Source: Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND)