Bishop Eliezer Pascua, UCCP general secretary, is certain that the forced abduction is related to Guerreros activist background, he being a former secretary-general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance)-Southern Tagalog.
The laptop computer that he uses for church and school work which was taken during the abduction was returned to him but was already messed up with subversive files, the pastor said. The family was not able to recover other stolen items.
Arrest or abduction
Philippine National Police (PNP)-Cavite Director Senior Supt. Fidel Posadas said that intelligence agents under him arrested, and not abducted, Guerrero. He claimed that the arrest was legal and was covered by two court warrants but did not give details on the cases.
On the contrary, Bayan Muna (People First) general counsel Neri Javier Colmenares clarified that an arrest warrant does not permit the police to abduct persons.
Reviewing eyewitnesses accounts, he thinks that the PNP operation was illegal at almost every step. The four abductors were not in uniform. They did not introduce themselves as officers of the law. They used guns, pointed them at him and one of the assailants hit the pastor in the nape. They then dragged him to one of the vans with covered plates.
If this is not abduction, we do not know what it is. It cannot even pass as a legitimate arrest or serving of a warrant under the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, Colmenares explained. Even if a warrant is produced later, Pastor Guerrero was deliberately hidden from his family and lawyers, effectively depriving him of his rights under the law.
The Revised Rules of Criminal Procedures Rule 113, Section 7 states that: When making an arrest by virtue of a warrant, the officer shall inform the person to be arrested of the cause of the arrest and the fact that a warrant has been issued for his arrest, except when he flees or forcibly resists before the officer has opportunity to so inform him, or when the giving of such information will imperil the arrest. The officer need not have the warrant in his possession at the time of the arrest but after the arrest, if the person arrested so requires, the warrant shall be shown to him as soon as practicable.
The abductors and their commanding officer, he concluded, may be held liable in administrative, criminal and civil cases. Bulatlat
Religion
