The New People’s Army’s Conrado Heredia Command in Southern Mindanao announced over the weekend that it has in its custody an Army sergeant whom it called a “prisoner of war.” It said it is going to investigate the soldier for possible “war crimes” and human-rights violations.
Conrado Heredia Command
Front 20 Operations Command
New People’s Army-Southern Mindanao
May 5, 2007
Philippine Army Staff Sgt. Albert Baludoya, an NPA Prisoner of War
The Camp for the Administration of Detainees (CAD) of the New People’s Army in Southern Mindanao announces that it is now holding Philippine Army SSgt. Albert A. Baludoya as a prisoner of war. A special investigative body was set-up by the Merardo Arce Command-Southern Mindanao Regional Operations Command-NPA to look into the possible war crimes and other serious violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law which may have been committed by POW SSgt. Baludoya in his 17 years of active participation in the counter-revolutionary war. POW SSgt. Baludoya is the detachment commander of the 72nd Infantry Battalion-AFP; his detachment is nestled right in the midst of civilian communities in Aliwagwag, Cateel in Davao Oriental.
SSgt. Baludoya was accorded the status as prisoner of war on the basis of the international humanitarian laws and the 1996 NDFP Unilateral Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocol 1 of 1977. As such, all the rights appurtenant to his status as prisoner of war is respected and dutifully safeguarded by his custodians. The arrest, capture and detention, and possible trial of prisoners of war are justifiably carried out by the NPA that is a party to the ongoing civil war, such act being clothed with legitimacy in regards to parties at war provided that the rights of the prisoners of war are respected.
POW SSgt. Baludoya is under the custody of the Camp for the Administration of Detainees of the NPA. He shall be in detention while the CAD awaits the results of the investigation. Rest assured that the NPA strictly adheres to international humanitarian law and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAR-HR-IHL) and maintains the highest discipline in compliance to war protocols and the inherent internal Rules of Discipline of the New People’s Army.
No harm shall befall on POW SSgt. Baludoya as the New People’s Army has shown in numerous prisoners of war cases that it upholds its policy of humane and lenient treatment of prisoners of war, a policy which is integral to its character as a revolutionary army and which is non-existent as far as the war criminal Armed Forces of the Philippines is concerned.
(Sgd) Roel Agustin II
Spokesman
Conrado Heredia Command
Front 20 Operations Command
New People’s Army-Southern Mindanao
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