Armed Forces of the Philippines chief, General Romeo Brawner Jr., on Wednesday denied the allegations of torture by the two young activists who claimed they were abducted by soldiers in Bataan province.
Brawner clarified that environmentalists Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano have undergone the military’s standard operating procedure for the rebel returnees.
“We applied everything that is stipulated in our SOP when someone surrenders. We let them undergo medical examination the very first hour that they were brought to our custody when they surrendered,” Brawner said during the Senate deliberation on the proposed 2024 national budget of the Department of National Defense and its attached agencies.
Brawner stood firm that Castro and Tamano “voluntarily surrendered” to the Philippine Army’s 70th Infantry Battalion in Plaridel, Bulacan, after going missing on 2 September.
“When they surrendered. The first hour, we called for a doctor to do a physical examination on them. That’s why their statements that they were tied up with their other allegations of torture — are not true,” he said.
In a government-sponsored press conference last week, Tamano and Castro made a surprising statement that they were “coerced to surrender” and “threatened” by the military.
Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa said Brawner’s assertion about the surrendering of Tamano and Castro could be backed by the statement of Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Rueda-Acosta.
“Everything that they said was properly debunked by PAO chief Acosta. In that alone, their claims were already destroyed,” Dela Rosa said.
Perjury raps
Meanwhile, Defense Chief Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said the government is preparing perjury charges against the two activists after they recanted their earlier statements, which were put through a “handwritten affidavit.”
“There is a case preparation now, multi-agency case preparation for the filing of perjury charges against them. The sworn statements of the witnesses are being reviewed,” Teodoro said.