On the illegal arrest and detention of Evelyn Beda�a and Josephine Perez

Martin Montana
Chadli Molintas Command
New People's Army
Ilocos-Cordillera Region
July 02, 2003

The Chadli Molintas Command (NPA Ilocos-Cordillera) strongly condemns the illegal arrest and detention of Evelyn Beda�a and Josephine Perez by the military last June 22 in Baguio City. Beda�a and Perez were brought to a safehouse and, under duress, were forced to implicate themselves. They were subsequently brought to Camp Aguinaldo, then to Bangued, Abra where they are now detained. The AFP alleged that Beda�a and Perez are top NPA leaders � that Beda�a is �secretary of the Regional Party Committee of the Ilocos-Cordillera region� and that Perez is the �political officer of the Komiteng Larangang Gerilya Sinag.� There is not a single grain of truth to these allegations. The two are not leaders or members of the CPP-NPA. They are members of non-government organizations (NGOs) advocating people�s democratic rights and working for the people�s social and economic well-being.

Informants and witnesses will attest that Beda�a is a staff member of the Solidarity of Peasants against Exploitation which is working for the alleviation of poverty among the peasants in Ilocos, and that Perez is the Ilocos regional coordinator of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines advocating campus press freedom. Reminiscent of the Martial Law days, the AFP�s arrest and detention of Beda�a and Perez are human rights violations meant to harass, persecute, and terrorize innocent people.

The military charged them with the following: the assassinations of Conrado Balweg in 1999, of Mayor Teodoro Hernaez of Sta. Lucia, Ilocos Sur in 2001, and of Mayor Clarence Benwaren of Tineg, Abra last year; the blasting of the ignominious Marcos bust in January 2003; the bombing of telecommunications towers in Ilocos Sur, and �various NPA-initiated killings.�

If Beda�a and Perez were actually able to accomplish all these, they should be lauded instead for such achievements! But then again, the Chadli Molintas Command hereby explicitly maintains that Beda�a and Perez are totally innocent of the above charges. These charges are absolutely trumped up.

As the AFP has been programmed to do in the past, it arrests and detains innocent leaders and members of legitimate organizations in order to suppress the people�s protest and airing of grievances. Another modus operandi of the AFP is to plant �evidences� such as guns on their victims. Still another of their favorite tactics is to �promote� their victims as high ranking members of the CPP-NPA. Their captives are then charged with various ridiculous crimes which the military or police have not been able to solve at all. The military officials are then awarded with merits and promotions for such �accomplishment.�

A case in point is the illegal arrest and detention last April 2000 of Lorna Rivera Baba and several other lay and clergy members of the Aglipayan Church. They were charged with the murder of Conrado Balweg. Only recently, the court dismissed the charges for lack of merit, proving their innocence. But the military have already violated their rights, deprived them of their freedom, and inflicted them with mental torture and emotional anguish.

Understandably, the AFP is condemned to repeat its past mistakes and is slow to learn its lessons. Wherever there is a rise in people�s consciousness, resistance, and legitimate dissent, the AFP�s unthinking reflex is to resort to suppression and persecution of the people, arbitrarily arresting anyone and hurling charges against them without a single shred of evidence. And so the charges against Beda�a and Perez will most certainly not flourish and will eventually be dismissed, thanks to the AFP intelligence�s lack of intelligence. The more that the AFP resorts to brazen use of force, the more it proves its fascist character. And when legitimate protest is made impossible, armed revolution will become all the more inevitable.

The Chadli Molintas Command has already owned up to the blasting of the Marcos bust in a statement issued last January 2003, and to the just punishment meted to Mayor Hernaez for his crimes against the people. These operations were carried out by operatives of the NPA, and not by Beda�a and Perez who most probably do not even know how to fire a rifle and much less to carry them! In the first place, the charges cited by the military are not crimes, but the enactment of revolutionary justice by the New People�s Army based on the will of the people�s revolutionary government and through due process. #

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