Arroyo is `Responsible for my Abduction, Torture’ – UCCP Pastor

When will this stop?

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Arroyo is `Responsible for my Abduction, Torture’ – UCCP Pastor

My abductors brought me to a place I didn't know. Here, still handcuffed, men would take turns interrogating and beating my head with their fists and other objects like a 1,000-ml mineral bottle. All throughout, layers of plastic bags covered my head. My torturers would tighten the bag until I could no longer breathe. I passed out two times and urinated in my pants.

BY PASTOR BERLIN V. GUERRERO
Posted by Bulatlat
Democratic Space
Vol. VII, No. 17, June 3-9, 2007

What does it take a government to have the nerve to abduct, torture and terrorize my family on the basis of an old inciting to sedition case and a baseless murder charge?

Far more absurd is the accusation that I am the secretary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) provincial committee in Cavite. They tried to extract this lie from me by means of physical, mental and psychological torture; and by projecting me in public as a "hand gun and grenade-carrying rebel."

I am a pastor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and have never participated in any killings, illegal or unlawful activities, or any common crime.

Last May 27, my family and I have just taken a tricycle from the local church which I have served for two consecutive years (June 2006-2007). We just celebrated UCCP's and the local church's 59th and 72nd anniversaries respectively. At around 5:30 p.m., a white van cut the tricycle's path and military-looking men quickly alighted to grab me, ignoring my plea that they show me the warrant they said they had.

I was manhandled and forcefully shoved inside the van. With my hands behind me, they handcuffed me. They then covered my head with a cloth and packing tape. I was repeatedly beaten, punched and kicked.

They brought me to a place I didn't know. Here, still handcuffed, men would take turns interrogating and beating my head with their fists and other objects like a 1,000-ml mineral bottle. All throughout, layers of plastic bags covered my head. My torturers would tighten the bag until I could no longer breathe. I passed out two times and urinated in my pants.

They made me shake my head for about an hour and beat me whenever I stopped. They said that they would do these things to my family if I did not cooperate. I was forced to give names and addresses of my whole family, officers of church and conferences, name of my administrator at Union Theological Seminary where I am studying theology, as well as leaders of progressive labor and peasant organizations in Southern Tagalog.

They opened my computer by forcing me to give the password, got my e-mail password. They erased all of my church, school and personal files and replaced them with documents that belong to the so-called underground left. They also got my mobile phone’s SIM card.

After about 12 hours, they put me back on the van still handcuffed and blindfolded. They threatened to kill, burn or bury me.

They continued to beat me and called me names. They called me Pastor-Impostor and lectured me on the "evils" of communism and how the church, legal people's organizations are "used" to create trouble by criticizing the government.

When the van stopped, it took an hour before they led me down, made me sit and lie down. After another hour, they removed my blindfold. Here I learned that I was in Imus, Cavite specifically at Camp Pantaleon Garcia, Cavite Provincial Police Office (PPO).

Later on in the afternoon, that was the only time I saw the warrants of arrest and to what unit of the Philippine National Police (PNP) I was turned over to by my abductors.

Now that I have the time to collect my thoughts and view my situation inside what police offices call a “subhuman" cell, let me make a preliminary analysis of my unfinished ordeal.

1. The unit which abducted me is an organized Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) unit which operates covertly or below the law. It is composed of elements coming from different units of AFP's Intelligence Community. As a counter-insurgency unit, it uses former members of the New People’s Army (NPA). They are lawless enforcers.
2. Court cases, no matter how weak, involving suspected personalities of the Left are being used to make arrests appear legitimate. In my case, I was implicated in a murder case in 1990. Case files show that I do not have a direct or indirect link to the crime.
3. Bringing me to the court by means of the arrest warrants is secondary. Their primary objective is to extract information from me by means of torture.
4. What I went through is meant to terrorize my family, relatives, friends, church members and practically everyone I know and who know me. It creates a thinking that this repeated attack on a person's right, which may end in incarceration or death, can happen to anybody.

I am outraged by their branding me as a "Pastor-Impostor" because it is an affront to the sacred office I have sworn to serve God Almighty who knows every heart and mind.

Finally, I hold the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government responsible for the abduction and torture I have suffered and the subhuman captivity I am forced to accept. The Macapagal-Arroyo administration should listen to the repeated cries of the people to stop human rights violations, particularly political killings.

They may have put me in jail, but my spirit is free and firm because God is with us always.


(SGD.) PASTOR BERLIN V. GUERRERO
United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Inside the Camp Pantaleon Garcia
Cavite Provincial Police Office
Imus, Cavite
May 30, 2007