From InterAksyon (Nov 10): Rights group slams PNP for 'trumped up' charge vs son of Cordillera rebel
Human rights activists accused the Philippine National Police of deliberately misleading relatives and lawyers of the son of a Cordillera rebel officer until they could file “trumped up” charges against him. Karapatan, in a statement Saturday, said the family and lawyers of Grayson Naogsan finally found him detained at the Ifugao provincial jail, almost a week after he was taken from SM Baguio November 5 by men who introduced themselves as police and said they were taking him to Camp Crame in Quezon City. Grayson is the son of Simon “Ka Filiw” Naogsan, spokesman of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Front. According to Karapatan, Naogsan’s family went several time to Camp Crame but were told he was not in custody there. Karapatan said its affiliate, the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance, earlier reported that “Naogsan was arrested on the basis of a defective warrant of arrest issued by the Bontoc Regional Trial Court Branch 35 which bore the name of a certain ‘Jason Naogsan’ and not Grayson Naogsan.” The CHRA claimed the warrant was amended Friday to correct the name, after which Naogsan “was then taken to Ifugao where another warrant of arrest was issued by the Lagawe RTC Branch 14” on charges of murder and frustrated murder. “No one should be arrested simply because he is a son or a relative of a person who is a member of the revolutionary movement,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said in the statement as she cored what she called government’s “arbitrariness,” citing the case of security guard Rolly Panesa, who was apparently mistaken for communist rebel leader Benjamin Mendoza. Palabay said this was not the first time a member of the Naogsan family had been targeted for harassment. “In 2011, Pablo Naogsan, 83, Grayson’s grandfather, and the father of Simon … was also harassed by elements of the 54th (Infantry Battalion) in Bontoc,” she said. Soldiers allegedly forced their way into Pablo’s home, aimed rifles at him and searched the house.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/47704/rights-group-slams-pnp-for-trumped-up-charge-vs-son-of-cordillera-rebel
CPP human rights front comes to the defense of the son of a prominent member of the underground Maoist insurgents and who, himself, appears to be a member of the NPA. Uses the usual defense that he is just an innocent civilian (whose father just happens to be a member of the NPA).
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