The youth earlier reported missing after he was held in a checkpoint of Task Force Davao in barangay Malabog surfaced when the Regional Trial Court (RTC) served the writ of amparo to militiamen on Tuesday. But Bebelita Bustamante, the mother, said she still feels uneasy because the militiamen holding his son still refused to release him.
“Roel Sembrano never took my side to [sic] the allegations that he want only broadcasted [sic] over the radio. His pronouncements on radio were all brazen lies and intrigues. People in Compostela valley and in Compostela municipality in particular are aware that Sembrano is not a broadcaster that [sic] reports objective truths, issues and events, but a media practtiioner who is under the wings, [sic] caprices and influences of some local politicians, immoral and corrupt, who are all out to destroy my refutation [sic] as a civil servant and critique [sic] of excesses of other politicians.” — Neri Barte, board member, Compostela Valley Province
The journalists trooped to the office of the Mindanao Ombudsman as Sembrano filed a criminal case of grave coercion, grave threats, physical injury, and an administrative case of grave abuse of authority against against the Compostela Valley provincial board member Neri Barte, who allegedly attacked him inside the announcer’s booth at around 6:15 a.m. of October 23.
On the night of October 27, 22-year-old Luisito Bustamante and his friends and younger sister Libby were on their way to Malabog to distribute handbills for the approaching barangay elections when they were accosted at a checkpoint by elements of the Task Force Davao. Bustamante was held and has not been found since.
Gladys Adonis, the wife of jailed Davao Alexander “Lex” Adonis, said her husband has been admitted to the prison hospital in early October.
She said Adonis, an anchorman of Bombo Radio-Davao sentenced to four and a half years in prison early this year, had been feeling utterly “abandoned and depressed,” and is thinking of ending his life.
Datu Guibang Apoga, the chieftain of the Ata-Manobo tribe in the hinterlands of Talaingod, has been in hiding for a decade now.
The workers and their families held a silent picket in front of the Panabo City Council to solicit support. They were retrenched after DITFI-Dole Stanfilco arbitrarily announced �closure� on Oct. 8. But no help came from any of the councilors, prompting the workers to go back to the picket line at the entrance of the container yard. There, soldiers confronted them.
The military continued attacking Muslim communities even during the Ramadan, according to human-rights and Moro groups. “When entire communities get displaced by war, how are you going to celebrate Ramadan?” one of them asked. “Ramadan completely loses its meaning. Foremost in your mind, when you’re in an evacuation center, is how to survive, where to look for food, or to keep yourself from being harassed, or get hit by a bomb.”
The Alejandro Lanaja Command-Front 3 Operations Command of the New People’s Army is holding under its custody Army detachment commander Sgt. Raul Reyes, along with paramilitary Civilian Action Auxiliary members Glorieto Mahumas, and Rudy Villaflor. The three were arrested during the October 7 NPA tactical offensive that successfully raided the 72nd Infantry Battalion-AFP detachment in Canidkid, Montevista in Compostela Valley Province.
