ABDUCTED or surrendered, environmental activists or communist enemies of the state, Jolina Castro and Jhed Tamano — who were both reported missing the past week — surfaced in a government-organized press conference on Tuesday claiming they were snatched by the military.
“The truth is we were abducted by military officers in a van and forced to ‘surrender’ because they threatened our lives,” Ms. Castro said in Filipino during the live-streamed press conference, which has since been taken down from the government’s anti-communist task force Facebook page.
A day earlier, the task force reported that the two ladies had signed an affidavit admitting they were members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) and that they had surrendered to military authorities in Pampanga to seek help in abandoning the rebel group.
In the latest twist to the story, Ms. Castro said she and Ms. Tamano were coerced to sign that affidavit, prompting human rights group Karapatan to issue a statement urging the government to release them immediately.
National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) Director Alexander Umpar stood by the report of Armed Forces spokesman, Medel M. Aguilar, that Ms. Castro and Ms. Tamano are “victims of terrorism.”
“We need to still help these two who returned to the side of the government, whatever their reasons may be,” Mr. Umpar said in Filipino at the live-streamed press conference that had been taken down. — John Victor D. Ordoñez
