Press STATEMENT
20 APRIL 2007
“WE WILL FIGHT TILL THE END!”
Two decades of unwavering struggle for peoples’ rights of Lourdes Rubrico, the abducted urban poor leader in Dasmari?as who surfaced seven days after her captors freed her in the middle of the night in a shopping mall of the said municipality, made her what she is today after she decided to go after her abductors by filing a criminal and administrative suit today at 11 o’ clock in the morning before the Office of the Ombudsman in Quezon City.
Nanay Ude, as she is popularly known, was abducted on in a shelter while she is asleep in the afternoon of April 3 after attending the Pabasa ng Bayan, traditionally conducted by progressive groups during holy week. Before she was released, family, friends, and companions restlessly searched for the whole week.
Expressing her ordeal, for seven days she was interrogated forcing her to affirm that she’s a member of left-leaning organizations and that her urban poor organization she’s involved with since the 1980’s, Ugnayan ng Maralita para sa Gawa at Adhikain (UMAGA) Federation cannot sustain its operation if the influence of the left-leaning groups is not felt. “I was showed a number of pictures of various individuals asking me, if I recognize the faces who were allegedly members of leftist groups and forcing me to claim that I’m also a member of these leftist groups,” Nanay Ude added.
Asked who her abductors were and how she was released, “I’m abducted by government agents under the Philippine Air Force, accepted their offer to cooperate with them and be one of their intelligence operatives. Thus, they made me sign papers, gave ma a sim, and P200 in order for me to go home.”
“I made the desperate move to live and warn innocent people that I think my captors would do something to harm them! While in the hands of my abductors, my traumatic experience made me remember what I read in the papers about political repression and now convinced that all in the papers are true! The government is not just engaged in demonizing the progressive peoples’ organization but also involved in witch hunting of whom the state believe are members of these left-leaning organizations,” Rubrico expressed. She continued, “I am neither afraid nor threatened of the incident, rather it made me absolutely resolved to file a case against my abductors to teach the state a lesson that my two-decade struggle is no nonsense and seek justice for martyrs who devoted their life for the rights and welfare of the people!”
In the perspective of the Cavite Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (CEMJP), a church-based human rights group in Cavite who assisted the family in searching the abducted urban poor leader, what happened to Nanay Ude is the clear expression of the grandiose Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) campaign to resolve the insurgency problem in the country until 2010 the Oplan Bantay Laya 2.
Diane Mariano, CEMJP secretary general, said, “The rapacity of the Oplan Bantay 2 was first felt in the province after the abduction of a United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) pastor in the Union Theological Seminary (UTS), Dasmari?as on the 30th of March this year. We recognize the presence of mind that Nanay Ude has. In her age of 63, we admire her courage and agile thinking that she must do something not just for herself but also for the welfare of other possible victims. Thus, we are appealing before the public for the victims to do the same as Nanay Ude is doing. Testify and file a suit against their perpetrators to put into justice who were victimized by state political repression and harassment. We will fight until peace based on justice rule our lands!” ###
for reference:
DIANE MARIANO
secretary general
cemjp
+63.928.294.4086
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