After four years of legal battles, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 27 in Catbalogan City dismissed the case of illegal possession of firearms and explosives state forces filed against Esteban Manuel Jr. Manuel is a National Democratic Front (NDF) peace negotiations consultant and a known environmental protection and rural development advocate.

State forces arrested Manuel on February 16, 2022 in Barangay Cambaguio, Villareal, Samar. He was conducting an environmental assessment and documenting the destruction of the province’s coastlines at the time of his arrest. The police and military troops who seized him claimed confiscating firearms and explosives from Manuel’s person.

Manuel and his lawyers from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) firmly refuted the accusations. In light of this, the court acquitted Manuel because of procedural defects, including the absence of an immediate inventory of the seized evidence, doubts over the credibility of the soldiers’ testimony, and the disappearance of key witnesses. The court also ordered the return to Manuel of his confiscated personal belongings, including his laptop, cellphone, and research documents.

The NDF-Eastern Visayas welcomed Manuel’s acquittal. Its spokesperson Ka Celine Manlimbasog said Manuel must be immediately released and allowed to enjoy his retirement peacefully with his family.

The court’s decision aside, the group again denounced Manuel’s arrest as a violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG). The JASIG was signed in 1995 by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the NDFP, granting guarantees to negotiators, personnel, and consultants of both parties against reprisals, including surveillance and arrest.

The group said the arrest and rights violations against Manuel are just one of the many attacks state forces carried out against active and retired revolutionaries in the region in 2022. Among these cases are the arrest of Edwin Alcid (Ka Veejo) in March 2022 in Northern Samar, the torture and killing of Amado Adelantar (Ka Butil) and Maria Norie Adelantar in the same month in Jiabong, Samar, and the killing of Rodrigo Mejica Lorezo (Ka Akag) and Delia Rosco Rotamula (Ka Mema) in Barangay Galutan, San Jose de Buan, Samar in August 2022. Also recorded that month were the arrest and deliberate massacre of NDFP consultants Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria and their companions.

“The Marcos Jr regime, just like all the others before it, continues to uphold its policy of all-out war and outright refusal to address the root causes of the civil war,” Manlimbasog said. However, she said this same policy breeds revolutionaries like Manuel and many others.