CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The Sigma Kappa Pi Fraternity and the Sigma Delta Pi Sorority in this province issued yesterday a joint statement “strongly condemning the illegal arrest and detention” of a University of the Philippines (UP) undergraduate and an alumnus who were nabbed by the military in Carangglan, Nueva Ecija over a week ago.
The statement said Guillier Martin Cadano, one of the two arrested, is a member of Pi Sigma. Also under detention was his companion Gerald Salonga. The police in Cabanatuan City filed non-bailable charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against them.
“The so-called arrest perpetrated by combined elements of the 3rd Infantry Battalion, the Nueva Ecija Provincial Public Safety Company and the Nueva Ecija Criminal Investigation and Detection Team was without the proper arrest and search warrants therefore making it illegal and unjust,” the statement said.
It noted that “ordinary folks in Barangay RT Padilla, Carranglan, Nueva Ecija, where Salonga and Cadano have been staying as community organizer- volunteers, witnessed how heavily armed elements of the AFP/PNP entered one of the houses around 3 p.m. of August 9, 2014. The arrest in fact is a simple case of the arresting elements not wanting to come back empty-handed nor lose face for their blunder.”
It said that the arrest of Cardano and Salonga was “a blatant violation of their human rights” and that their detention was “based on charges that are not only imaginary and made-up, but are utterly without basis whatsoever.”
Human rights group Karapatan Chair Sr. Cecille Ruiz, who led a team to help the two soon after their arrest, said that Cardano and Salonga insisted that the arms and explosives were planted.
This, even as the joint statement decried “the purported claim that Gerald Salonga and Guiller Martin Cadano are rebels when they are in fact mere youth volunteers helping organize farmers and other community members assisted by the Kabataan Party- list and Anakbayan.”
“”Such accusations are very much reminiscent of the Marcos-era when everyone who dared fight for one’s rights and welfare was tagged a communist rebel,” it noted. The fraternity and sorority urged the military and police authorities to “immediately drop the baseless-charges against Gerald Salonga and Guiller Martin Cadano and to release them immediately to their respective families.”
“We join other nationalist and patriotic mass organizations in exposing and opposing the government’s Oplan Bayanihan under which the government does not distinguish anymore between armed rebels and legitimate activists.
We join them in their advocacy to uphold and observe R.A. 10353 or the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIL) and the release from detention of all political prisoners,” the statement also said.
