This is how security guard Rolly Panesa looked like soon after he was arrested by military and police intelligence agents who wrongly accused him of being a ranking communist rebel leader. (file photo)
A security guard who had been tortured and detained for close to year after he was mistakenly accused of being a ranking communist rebel has asked the Department of Justice to review a resolution absolving a number of military and police officers of the charges he filed.
The human rights group Karapatan said Rolly Panesa filed his petition for partial review on Thursday after the DOJ dropped Major Generals Alan Luga and Eduardo Del Rosario, police Chief Superintendent James Andres Melad, Senior Superintendent Manuel Abu, and Chief Inspector Reynaldo Mendoza from charges of violating the anti-torture law.
The DOJ also cleared Judge Adocate General Office lawyer Alex Alberto Propanes of icriminatory machination and said there was no probable cause to indict Colonel Generoso Bolina and the military’s “witnesses” -- Luis Grajo Rayos, Michael Rojo Alvarado and Erwin Rosales -- for perjury.
The only ones indicted by the DOJ were Inspector Bonifacio Guevarra, Senior Police Officer 1 Christopher Flores, Police Officers 2 Ariel dela Cruz and Joseph Fernandez, for less serious physical injuries, violation of section 4b (mental and psychological torture) of the anti-torture law (Republic Act 9745), violation of the rights of arrested persons (RA 7438), and grave coercion.
Panesa, a native of Negros Occidental, was arrested by military and police intelligence agents in Cubao, Quezon City on October 5, 2012, with the Armed Forces of the Philippines later claiming to have captured Benjamin Mendoza, an Ilocano who supposedly is a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ Central Committee.
The military stuck to its claim even after human rights groups presented evidence Panesa had apparently suffered severe torture after his arrest and despite information tending to disprove that the security guard, then 48, could not be the rebel leader, who was 61 at the time.
On August 27, 2013, the Court of Appeals, acting on a petition for habeas corpus filed on Panesa’s behalf, ordered him released after it was “convinced that this is a case of mistaken identity.” Among others, the appellate court said the evidence presented by the military actually helped demolish its own case, including what it called lies told by the police and the supposed “witnesses” who identified Panesa as Mendoza.
Ironically, two weeks before the CA decision, the military even handed an “informant” a P5.6-million reward for the “capture” of “Mendoza.”
Despite the CA ruling, the military tried to delay Panesa’s release and also attempted to re-file the charges against him.
This prompted Panesa to file his own charges against those responsible for his arrest.
However, in its resolution, the DOJ said while the anti-torture law was violated by state security forces, it belied Panesa’s claims of physical torture, describing the security guard’s injuries as “superficial much less not severe.”
It also said there was no “mental torture at the time of arrest because complainant could not accurately recount what happened after his arrest.”
Reacting to the DOJ findings, Karapatan chair Marie Hilao-Enriquez said: “It is a clear and established fact that Panesa was harassed, intimidated and tortured not only mentally and psychologically but also physically to force him to admit he is ‘Benjamin Mendoza.’ His badly beaten face is a telling evidence that he was heavily tortured, while being interrogated by the PNP and the AFP.”
“The DOJ’s resolution shows how sham the anti-torture law is. This is how the government commemorates today, June 26, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torturem” she added.
Enriquez maintained that the military and police officers cleared by the DOJ had “obvious knowledge” of the arrest and torture of Panesa.
“They were the brains behind the arrest of Panesa. They even bragged about the capture of this supposedly high-ranking NPA commander with a P5.6 million-peso bounty,” she added.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/89960/sekyu-falsely-accused-of-being-rebel-seeks-review-after-doj-drops-vs-afp-pnp-officials-from-raps
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