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Freed punk shares nightmares

Frencess Ann Bernal, 15, belongs to a middle class family from the National Capital Region. She dropped from her third year high school class but enrolled instead at the Marikina TESDA Alternative Learning Center. Due to her strong adventurism and love of music, she became a member of a punk group in Manila.

Rock and reggae are her favorite music, she quips with pride. She claims to play any musical instrument in a gig with her punk group. But for nearly four months now, she is unable to play rock and reggae, as her facial expression shifts to sadness. Frencess was detained in a district jail here in Benguet province after she and 10 other punks were “captured” by officers of the Philippine National police (PNP) on February 14 when they were on their way to a well-known tourist destination in Sagada, Mountain Province.

Her captors insist that she and her group belong the to the New People’s Army (NPA) team that raided a military detachment in Mankayan, Benguet on February 10.

She shared with media groups her experience at the hands of her PNP captors. She has reason to smile upon release. However, behind those rare smiles, she cried, recalling her arrest and interrogation— “My nightmare,” she claims, that she will never forget.

Frencess traveled with her friends from Manila to a gig in Gerona, Tarlac. From there, they agreed to attend the Panagbenga in Baguio City. Arriving in the City on February 12, a few days earlier than the official opening of the festival, she and her group decided to hitch hike to Sagada. At the third ride, the truck they were on was flagged down by a PNP team in a checkpoint in Bangao, Buguias, Benguet on February 14.

Nightmare

At the checkpoint, they were frightened when members of the PNP pointed their guns to them. “They ordered us to lie down on the truck’s still hot floor,” recalls Frencess. While lying face down, the PNP got their malong, sarong, and other things that they used to tie their hands. By force, they also got their bags and cell phones. Some of her friends were blindfolded.

After being ordered to stand up again, a PNP element kicked her on the back, to which her friends reacted, “Huwag, babae yan! (Don’t hurt her, she is a girl!)” After the initial torment, they were ordered to walk towards Camp Molintas, a few meters from the checkpoint.

While walking, she started to worry. As she is young, she thinks they maybe charged of vagrancy, a felony usually charged against minors roaming around unaccompanied by their parents or guardians. It turned out, however, that it was the worst nightmare of her and her friends’ lives.

At Camp Molintas’ parking lot, they were ordered to kneel down. The summer’s heat of the sun is in its peak. “Pahiwatig nila (PNP) na para kaming may kasalanan (They (PNP) seems to insinuate that we committed a violation),” she recalls. But their captors insisted they were NPA members, and forced them to accept that they belong to the NPA team that raided the said detachment. That statement was being repeated several times. But their tormentors got the same answers from all 11 youths: “We are punks from Manila.”

Frencess claimed that the PNP identified her as the medical head of the NPA team, and that she was armed with a carbine rifle during the raid. Now she realized that they are not to be detained for vagrancy. It was more than that. When the PNP could not extract information from her and her companions, a short man wearing a bonnet entered the area where all of them were gathered. The man pointed at her, Anderson Alonzo, Rondon Pandino, and Jefferson de la Rosa. Afterwards, all of the four were taken out from the room individually. (Later, the author learned that the said man was an alleged survivor of the February 10 raid, either a member of the CAFGU or military.)

Frencess was brought to a room. There, a stout man with a jacket asked her about her background and her where about when the raid happened. She answered it honestly: “I was in Gerona, Tarlac after she left their home in Manila.” After the stout man, another police went inside and asked her almost the same question. “Napipikon siya, at tinadyakan niya ako sa paa,” she narrates, claiming she was physically hurt by the kick. At one point in time, he nearly hit her with a chair causing her to feel unexplainable fear.

The stout man went inside again while the other went out. And that process was a routine during her one day and one night detention in Camp Molintas. She remembered well a time when the light was off. One of her interrogators, who she thinks could not accept her answers on the questions they raised, pointed and cocked a gun on her head.

The stout policeman brought her out of the room to an area at the middle of the camp. He demonstrated how they used live wire in interrogation. He tried it on her foot, but the current went off. She realized now it was a tactic to instill fear on her for the purpose of extracting information or to admit she was the NPA medical team leader of the Mankayan raid.

Frencess remembers well that one of her interrogators, who brought her outside the room, told her that captured “amazona” (referring to NPA women) have their clothes removed and bathed in a cold water. She chilled from what she heard, worsened by the cold weather of Buguias town.

Not contented with the same information extracted from her, the same man covered her head with thin plastic, while her hands were tied. She suffocated: “Kinagat ko ang cellophane hanggang sa magkabutas (I bit on the cellophane until air came in),” she said, crying. But the police covered her face with a thicker plastic bag. This time, she failed to bite the plastic. The last thing she remembers, she fainted due to asphyxiation.

The policemen used soft approach, too. One of her interrogators, who appeared kind, requested her to talk about what she knew on the NPA and the raid. He promised that if she tells her everything, that she was among the raiders and the medical officer, she will be released. She repeated what she had been telling all her interrogators, that they are punks from Manila. Unknowingly, due to the soft approach of the police officer and the mental and physical torments she received, she allegedly admitted (against her consent and truth) her alleged involvement, believing that doing so would facilitate her immediate release from her tormentors. It was all a machination employed by the “kind” police officer that she was trapped into, she learned later.

She remembers the policemen who interrogated her. But since they filed cases – criminal and administrative - and still to file other cases against their captors, the names of the policemen are withheld. In fact, she identified them in court when they were presented as their captors.

Gained freedom! Shattered dreams?

Frencess and her colleague Ray Lester Mendoza, a 16 year old, were released on May 30 as among the beneficiaries of the new law Republic Act 9344, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006. The said law, effective on May 22, exempts minors from criminal liability. Despite their release, she feels sad about their nine colleagues still jailed at the Benguet Provincial Jail. Their cases of homicide with robbery were quashed, as their arrest were illegal, by a Benguet judge on May 19, but their fate remains uncertain as the prosecution was given another 15 days to re-file an appropriate information against the nine.

Frencess says she and Lester may have been released by virtue of the state law, but the police used its coercive power and the legal system inflicted violations against her person and her friends. This injustice remains a nightmare for her which she would shoulder through her life time. # Arthur L. Allad-iw for NORDIS

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