We Are Innocent
No to Torture. Fellow punks expressed support for the Sagada 11 an called for an end to torture. (bulatlat.com photo by Ace Alegre)
Alonzo said that the false witness had pointed at the four of them as the persons who took part in the raid. As soon as they reached the camp, the soldiers demanded to know where the youths hid the firearms that had supposedly been taken by the rebels during the raid. “How could we tell we them when we are innocent? Alonzo said. We had merely wandered into the area.
The NPA in Mountain Province, in separate statements in February 2006, said the 11 youths were tourists and not members of the NPA and that they had no part in the detachment raid.
On the way back to the police headquarters, Rundren Berloize Lao, one of Alonzos friends, managed to escape. Furious at Laos escape, the police beat up Alonzo and the rest.
Lao had been taken to a nearby cliff and beaten up some more because the police had accused him of being the leader of the group. When a policeman struck him with a piece of wood, Lao rolled over the cliff. Although battered and wounded, with blood all over his body, Lao saw the opportunity to escape. The officers chased him, guns firing, but Lao managed to hide in the jungle.
Later, a breathless Lao spotted a house and tried to ask help from the occupants. Unfortunately, he was brought to an office of the National Bureau of Investigation, which turned him over back to the police.
The torture only stopped, according to Alonzo, when the four of them were transferred to the Benguet provincial jail, where Alonzo spent the next 10 months, in cell No. 12, unable to accept his fate. “I was innocent,” he said.
It was only after news came out about them that their relatives found out where they had been and what had happened to them.
Of the Sagada 11, nine spent 10 months in jail and were released only on Dec. 21, after pressure from human-rights groups mounted. The others, including the 15-year-old girl, were detained only for three months because they were minors.
The police officers who tortured them had apologized and had even bought them plane tickets home. The youths agreed not to sue the officers so they could go home. But no amount of apology, Alonzo said, can make them forget the terrible thing that happened to them.
“I lost my trust in the authorities,” Alonzo said. “They should have enough evidence before they start arresting people. What happened to us was a very clear form of violation of civil rights.” (Grace Uddin/davaotoday.com)
