'Tortured' Fil-Am activist seen training with rebels
Thursday, July 30, 2009
DAVAO CITY -- A Filipino-American who accused the military of abducting and torturing her last May 19 was allegedly training with the New People's Army (NPA) rebels.
Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner Jr., spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said Wednesday that an anti-communist party-list representative received a video showing Melissa Roxas' training with the rebel group.
Brawner said the content of such video "is a good development because we are seeing another side of Melissa Roxas."
Impeachment
On Wednesday, Representative Pastor "Jun" Alcover Jr. told the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that he will file an impeachment complaint against Chairperson Leila de Lima, whom he accused of favoring "communist insurgents."
Alcover went to the CHR Wednesday to submit a videotape and photographs of Roxas training in an alleged rebel camp somewhere in the Sierra Madre mountains in Aurora Province.
Alcover is a Cebuano who recently joined Congress as a representative of the party-list Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy (Anad).
Roxas, on the other hand, is an activist who has accused the military of abducting and torturing her. She is now under the CHR's protective custody.
De Lima summoned Roxas to comment on the video and photos, after Alcover and Representative Jovito Palparan of Bantay party-list presented these in a press conference.
Both Anad and Bantay are known for accusing progressive organizations and other party-list groups of serving as communist fronts.
Before turning over the video and photographs, Alcover said he asked for permission from the CHR en banc if he could ask Roxas questions. But when the CHR told him that only the CHR chairperson and commissioners can do so, he instead questioned de Lima.
Alcover said he asked de Lima if she knew Juliet de Lima Sison, wife of Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA).
Like Juliet, Alcover said, the CHR chairperson also hails from Iriga City, Camarines Sur.
Alcover quoted de Lima as saying: "If I say she (Juliet) is my relative, will you say I am also a communist?"
Alcover added that because he is now in doubt of de Lima's integrity as CHR chairperson, he only gave the commission a copy of the videotape and not the original one.
"Her bias in favor of the communists is my reason for filing an impeachment charge against de Lima. Imagine, she even questioned why Anad is accredited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), but she did not question why Bayan Muna and other communist groups are accredited by the Comelec?" Alcover said.
He also said that de Lima's bias also surfaced the other day when, in an interview, she said the issue of whether Roxas is a communist or not is irrelevant.
"Why irrelevant? It is important that we will determine whether Roxas is lying or not. And I think she (Roxas) is lying because the evidence shows that she has been in communist camps," Alcover said.
Evidences
Brawner, meantime, said that aside from the CDs and pictures shown by Alcover, there are also witnesses who are willing to come out to testify against Roxas.
"Ibig sabihin, they (Alcover and Palparan) have evidences, they are now holding evidences to prove that Melissa Roxas was indeed training with the New People's Army in the year 2006," Brawner said.
The military spokesman said the AFP is also deliberating the evidences provided by the two congressmen.
Roxas earlier accused several soldiers of abducting and torturing her. The AFP, however, denied this.
"Hanggang ngayon, we still stand by our earlier statement that the military has not been involved in the alleged abduction and torture. But we are not discounting the fact na may na-involved na military, and if ever we find out that a military personnel was really involved in the alleged abduction, then we will not hesitate to turn them over to the authorities, the police, or the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation)," Brawner said.
He said the video showing Roxas training with the NPA could support the military's theory that other groups, and not the AFP, were responsible for Roxas abduction and torture.
For Alcover, Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo had something to do with Roxas' abduction and torture, purportedly because she planned to leave the underground movement.
Ocampo is also being summoned by the CHR to answer the allegation.
Alcover and Palparan said they believed that Roxas was abducted by her comrades in the underground movement to prevent her from leaving the group.
The video clips and pictures of Roxas in an NPA camp was reportedly received by Alcober through an LBC pouch, which was sent to him.
Source:
'Tortured' Fil-Am activist seen training with rebels | Sun.Star Network Online
'Tortured' Fil-Am activist seen training with rebels
Originally Posted by taga_ipil
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