Worst, the officer behind the desk at the Tulunan Police Station had insisted that what happened that day was just an invitation.
“They were accosted by armed men, hauled in a pick-up truck, forcibly brought to a military camp and were stripped of all their clothing while in blindfolds and in full view of the bastards, and you call that an invitation?” an indignant Corazon Espinosa, vice-chairperson of Gabriela in Southern Mindanao asked.
Espinosa suspects that the police and military are conniving to cover up the case.
Break-In
As if the ordeal of Lourilie and Bernadette were not enough, a day after the two went to the Tulunan police station to secure a police blotter, armed men tried to break into the Farmers’ Institute for Development (Find) quarters in Barangay Kisante in Makilala, where they were temporarily staying. The incident happened late in the evening of Nov. 21.
Lourilie recalled that while everyone was asleep inside the Find quarters, they heard a loud banging on the door. Lourilie’s mother, 58, who works as a fishpond caretaker, got up and saw outside the house two men in civilian clothes carrying long rifles. She asked the two victims to hide but the two women, who were still recovering from trauma, shouted for help instead. Hearing the women’s loud cries, the armed men sped away on a motorcycle. In the morning, the women saw footmarks of military boots on the mud and a cap they said belonged to one of the soldiers who tortured them.
“It was not enough that they suffered atrocities in the hands of the military. In this recent break-in incident, it is clear that there is a continuing attempt to silence the victims and prevent them from exposing the atrocities committed by their perpetrators,” Espinosa said.
Espinosa said that while not a single bruise was found on Lourilie and Bernadette on the day they were turned in by their captors at the police station, the effects of the mental torture and the sexual harassment they experienced are “deep and lingering.
Espinosa challenged the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and other agencies of the government to investigate and file cases against the 27th IB and 39th IB and to ensure that the commanding officers of these units are held accountable for their actions.
“So Lourilie and Bernadette could fully recover from the traumatic experience, they have to obtain justice,” Espinosa said. (Cheryll D. Fiel/davaotoday.com)
[tags]davao today, general santos, north cotabato, mindanao, philippines, human rights, gabriela, torture, rape, sexual harassment, philippine military[/tags]
2006: Davao Today's Year-End Series, Gender Issues
