Abduction as policy

February 20, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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Notebook By Jual L. MercadoBy Jual L. Mercado
Who hit the replay button? Rodolfo Lozadas dawn press conference stripped away the regimes fig leaf: that he vanished, then sought protection, as National Police chief Avelino Razon mumbled.

He did not. Lozada told the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, nameless armed men abducted him, with airport officials approval. They trundled him away from family, Senate Sargeant-at-Arms, and media curious if hed
testify on the broadband scandal.

Under duress, Lozada signed an affidavit that he asked for Security”. His abductors drove him from Manila , Cavite to Los Banos until directed to return because media was red hot on the trail. They dumped Lozada at La Salle - where he received sanctuary.

This country is no stranger to abductions The Abu Sayyaf kidnaps for loot, underscored in the Los Palmas kidnapping. Over 156 Filipino Chinese have been abducted for ransom, including Coca Cola Export Corporations Betty Sy. And the New Peoples Army abducts, both for ideology and cash.

But these were brigands. In contrast, state agents kidnapped Lozada. Were all in a pickle when government becomes the criminal. Protectors we train and arm, with our taxes, turn predators.

This replays the May 1970 abduction of the Chinese Commercial News publisher and editor. Quintin and Rizal Yuyitung were kidnapped by military and immigration agents. Shoved abroad an Air ForceC-47, they were handed to Taipei.

Like Violeta Lozada, Veronica Yuyitung didnt know what happened to her husband. Like then Immigration Commissioner EdmundoReyes, General Razon denied they were abducted. Quintin was picked up at the Manila Overseas Press Club. Lozada was bundled off from the Manila International Airports arrival tube.

Senator Jovito Salonga said, in a Senate privilege speech, laws were stomped on. A Filipino citizen, Quintin was deported”. The kidnapping short-circuited a pending petition, before the Supreme Court, questioning Commissioner Reyes jurisdiction. But there is much law at the end of a bayonet.

Misuse of state power for crime never tainted records of presidents like Manuel Quezon, Elipidio Quirino, Corazon Aquino, Carlos Garcia or Sergio Osmena, although his grandson Tomas, as Cebu City mayor, winks at 183 vigilante executions.

Marcos imprimatur, in the Yuyitung case, developed into full-blown policy under martial law. A country with a remarkable constitutional tradition turned into a gulag of safe houses where members of the Armed Forces (were) responsible for acts of unusual brutality,” Amnesty International found.

Between 1975 and 1985, some 737 Filipinos disappeared. Among these were sons of Supreme Court Justices Abraham Sarmiento and Pedro Yap of Cebu . Panfilo Lacson was a star of Marcos torture agency : the Military Intelligence Security Group. Perhaps he remembers some desaparecidos.

A Pagcor employee Edgardo Bentain filmed Joseph Estrada playing baccarat. He disappeared. The burned remains of abducted Salvador Bubby” were recovered in a shallow grave in Cavite . People of then Philippine National Police chief (now senator) Panfilo Lacson were linked to the murders, Sun Stars Bong Wenceslao writes. Ironically, Lacson is one of those investigating the NBN deal.

Inquirers front page run a striking photo of Lozada, witha security cordon of unarmed Catholic nuns, entering La Salles press conference. Who hit the replay button?

Just before Marcos fell, Lin Neumann wrote in San Francisco Examiner of a drunk Minister Jolly Benitez saying :”Marcos is finished And its all because of those nuns. How were we to know those f-g nuns would sit on those ballot boxes.”

Do those nuns, at La Salle, also signal the beginning of an end?
( E-mail: juan_mercado@pacific.net.ph)

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