Lilia Bucatcat and Emeterio Antalan (Karapatan photos)
A 70-year old former peasant organizer was arrested and later described as a rebel leader facing arson charges, the human rights organization Karapatan said as it also demanded the release of a jailed consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines who suffered a heart attack.
In a statement released Tueday, Karapatan said Lilia Bucatcat was on her way to walk her dog at the Marikina River Park the morning of March 9 when four men in a black car, two of them in uniforms of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, picked her up even if they could show no warrant for her arrest as she demanded. Neither did they allow her to inform her family of her arrest or even return her dog and take her things from her house.
A CIDG press release on Tuesday confirmed her arrest and identified her as the “Secretary of South Samar 2, Sub-Regional Command Sesame, Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee of the New People’s Army.”
It was only at the CIDG-National Capital Region office in Camp Crame was Bucatcat shown a warrant of arrest on what she described as “trumped up charges” of arson. Bucatcat, who Karapatan said has a benign throat cyst and is suffering body pains and other age-related ailments, was checked up at the PNP General Hospital before she was booked.
Bucatcat’s relatives, paralegals and members of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers tracked her to the CIDG-NCR office only the next day. There she told them that she saw one of the men who picked up frequenting her community days before her arrest. Her relatives also recalled the sudden increase of vendors in their area days before Bucatcat was seized.
Meanwhile, Karapatan said Antalan, 58 was first taken to the New Bilibid Prisons hospital on March 5 after he complained of chest pains. The next day he was transferred to the Ospital ng Muntinlupa where he was found to have suffered a mild heart attack.
Yet he had to stay two days at the emergency room before finally being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit where he stayed four days before being transferred to a ward.
Antalan is scheduled to be transferred to the Philippine Heart Center on Tuesday.
http://interaksyon.com/article/137712/rights-group-slams-arrest-of-elderly-ex-activist-calls-for-release-of-sick-ndfp-consultant
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