By MYLAH REYES ROQUE
ASPER Evangelista was so convinced that some Manila policemen were behind his son’s disappearance in March last year that he went straight to the chief of the police station in Tondo weeks later with a desperate request.
“Buhay man siya o patay, ibigay nyo sa akin (ang katawan). Ilalagay ko lang siya sa ayos, hindi ko kayo irereklamo (Dead or alive, please release my son’s body to me and I will not file a complaint against you),” he begged Senior Supt. Rogelio Rosales.
The 73-year-old father drew no response from the police officer. Neither has he seen Darius, 30, nor recovered his body.
Evangelista’s rather cavalier acceptance then—that Darius was tortured while under police custody and that he would not press charges against the police as long as he could recover the body—mirrors the concern raised by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) as it launched with world leaders the global campaign against torture last June 26, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
“An increasing number of governments are allowing torture to spread and that public opinion appears to tolerate the practice,” said the OMCT, a coalition of about 300 NGOs all over the world campaigning against the impunity that most torturers enjoy.
Evangelista and Darius’ wife, Margie, however, have since changed their minds about not bringing the police to court.
Without a body, confronted with the graphic brutality of the torture in the video—a naked man writhing on the floor, clutching with one hand his genitals tied by a string and being pulled by another man later identified by a specially convened task force as Senior Inspector Joselito B. Binayug—and emboldened by the public outcry over the video that was leaked to a TV station, they filed a complaint for torture against Binayug, Rosales and six other police officers believed to be well-entrenched in their community.
Darius may be a common thief—the family itself admits he had been in and out of the Manila City Jail for snatching and petty theft—but Margie insists that it still does not justify the torture.
In this, Margie is not alone. Her conviction is shared by no less than nine Nobel Prize laureates who launched the OMCT’s global campaign against torture last week.
World leaders like Kofi Anann, Martti Ahtisaari, Jimmy Carter, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchú, José Ramos-Horta, Desmond Tutu and Joseph Stiglitz signed the manifesto “Nothing can justify torture under any circumstances.”
“Security, the right to a decent social and economic life, and cultural freedom belong to every member of society. They not only belong to innocent people whose dignity and freedom are inviolable by the state and who must be guaranteed respect for their physical, mental and moral being, but also to offenders who should expect to be judged by independent courts where penalties are defined by law,” states the manifesto.
It states further, “The torturer, by inflicting deliberate pain or acute physical or mental suffering on a person, aims to secure a confession or to silence, humiliate and terrorise. We will hold responsible those governments who give free rein to paramilitary groups, death squads or private militia, or who fail to check the abuse of police power.”
In the Philippines, the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, Presidential Human Rights Committee and the United Against Torture Coalition marked the start of the global campaign by convening representatives from the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office, government, uniformed services, diplomatic community and civil society to review the Philippine commitment to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) and the domestic law against torture, Republic Act No. 9745, and its implementing rules and regulations.
As early as May 2009, the Committee Against Torture, the body of 10 independent experts that monitors implementation of the UNCAT, expressed concern over the “credible and consistent allegations” in the Philippines “of routine and widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of suspects in police custody, especially to extract confessions or information to be used in criminal proceedings.”
“Nakakabahala ito (This is a cause for concern),” said Sr. Crescencia Lucero, deputy executive director of Task Force Detainees of the Philippines. “Those incidents underline the need for a clear human rights policy from the government. This (policy) was not categorically indicated in the inaugural address or SONA. Parang SOP na sa mga pulis na mag-torture kapag may nahul (It appears it’s SOP for the police to torture anyone they catch).”
Chief Inspector Erwin Margarejo, Manila Police District spokesperson, assured, however, “The PNP will not tolerate any acts by a policeman that violate the law in the course of duty. The erring policeman will answer his individual liability before the proper forum.”
The OMCT’s latest manifesto highlights that “most victims of torture are the poor whose economic or social rights have also been violated.”
Evangelista’s community and Binayug’s area of jurisdiction is Tondo’s Parola compound, a reclaimed area near the North Harbor, home to a squatter’s community of urban settlers working at the pier and nearby Divisoria market.
In their manifesto, the laureates said, “The media and the public opinion are essentially responsible for supporting these authorities in this task and for challenging them if they fail in their duty.”
Following the public outcry over the video last year, Task Force Asuncion was immediately formed to investigate the suspects. Its report became the basis for the criminal complaint filed at the justice department against Binayug, Rosales, Supt. Ernesto V. Tendero Jr., SPO3 Joaquin M. de Guzman, SPO1 Rodolfo S. Ong, SPO1 Burt N. Tupas, SPO1 Dante F. Bautista and PO1 Rex C. Binayug.
The Philippine National Police’s NCR office also conducted an internal investigation and ordered Binayug’s dismissal from the service last Jan. 14.
NCR Police Director Nicanor Bartolome affirmed the findings of the Internal Affairs Service that the footage speaks for itself.
“The unnamed police official seen on the video footage aired by the ABS-CBN on August 17, 2010, where an unidentified naked male person was lying on the cement floor of a Police Community Precinct (PCP) with a string attached to his private organ being pulled and whipped simultaneously by another male person, was respondent PSINSP Binayug,” he said.
Many factors, however, prevent Darius’ case from progressing on the legal front.
Ernesto “Caloy” Anasarias, head of the UATC secretariat, said incidents like Darius’ highlight the absence of legal remedy that in turn sustains impunity.
He said the source of the video, believed to be another policeman videotaping the torture with a mobile phone, has not appeared.
While the leak of the video has encouraged other victims and witnesses to go public, the source’s refusal to go public has prevented authorities from determining when the video was actually taken and who exactly is the man being tortured.
These, in fact, are at the core of the defense filed by Binayug and his co-accused at the Department of Justice.
Binayug, who is appealing his dismissal from the service, said the video was inadmissible because its author has not identified himself, a basic requirement of the law. He also insisted that the torture could not be corroborated without the body of the victim.
The refusal of the source of the video to come forward also impacts upon those who were initially emboldened to be witnesses against the suspects, and who since then have not been given government protection.
Meanwhile, to Evangelista’s dismay, some of Binayug’s co-accused are back at work.