wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Philippines: A pastor victim of torture testifies before a UN committee

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World Council of Churches - News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 29/04/2009 16:27:56

A PASTOR TESTIFIES HE WAS TORTURED IN THE PHILIPPINES

Claims made by the Philippines government to a good human rights
track record "are utterly false", Rev. Berlin Guerrero told the
United Nations Committee against Torture this week. A victim of
torture himself, Guerrero said the government of Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo is "remiss in its responsibility to prevent torture". 

A pastor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines,
Guerrero stated that "church people have not been spared from
torture". "Most of the victims of torture among church people are
from member churches of the National Council of Churches in the
Philippines, and I am one of those who have been victimized," he
said. 

According to the human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the
Advancement of People's Rights), between 2001 and 2008 there were
1,010 documented victims of torture in the Philippines. Extra
judicial killings over the same period amounted to 991. 

Guerrero spoke before the 42nd session of the UN Committee
against Torture meeting in Geneva, Switzerland this week to
review the human rights record of Philippines and other
countries. He was sponsored by the World Council of Churches
(WCC) Commission of the Churches in International Affairs. 

Guerrero was abducted on 27 May 2007 in front of his family,
soon after Sunday worship at the local UCCP church in Malaban,
Biñan. "No warrant of arrest was shown despite our pleas and
protests," he recalled in his statement to the UN committee.

After "one year, three months and 15 days", he was released
because of the "insufficiency of evidence" against him. "To
experience this kind of persecution strengthened and confirmed my
faith," he says. "While in detention I was happy to be able to
serve the prison community by starting a Christian ministry to my
fellow detainees." 

When he visited the WCC offices in Geneva on 28 April, Guerrero
was welcomed by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia.
During a visit to the Philippines in November 2007 at the helm of
an international delegation, Kobia had joined the campaign (
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1722/filipino-christians-testi.html?tx_ttnews%5Bswords%5D=guerrero&cHash=ac21d0dc56
)for Guerrero's liberation, publicly calling for his release. 

According to Guerrero, thanks to an international campaign in
which churches have played a crucial role, the extra judicial
executions in the Philippines have decreased. But "with general
elections scheduled for 2010 they are peaking again, with a rate
of one person killed every week," he says. 

"The WCC will continue supporting the efforts of human rights
defenders in the Philippines," Kobia told Guerrero, who was
accompanied by Karapatan general secretary Marie Hilao-Enriquez,
and by Raymond Manalo ( http://www.karapatan.org/node/253 ),
another torture victim. 

>A farmer's ordeal

Manalo, a 27-year old farmer in San Ildefonso, in the northern
province of Bulacan, was abducted together with his brother
Reynaldo on 14 February 2006. He was held for 18 months in three
different secret detention facilities within military camps. 

"The soldiers beat us with pieces of wood on our backs and
different parts of our bodies, beat us with chains, burn
different parts of our bodies with cigarettes and heated metal
tin, kicked us with their combat boots on, hit us with the butts
of their rifles, poured gasoline on my waist and legs while
threatening to burn me," Manalo told the UN committee. 

He witnessed "soldiers summarily killing civilians whom they
accused of being rebels or aiding them" as well as other captives
being tortured. After admitting to his captors' accusations, the
torture was eased and he entered a slave work regime. 

Manalo escaped with his brother in August 2007. With help from
human rights organizations he was able to obtain a writ of amparo
- a legal remedy for victims of extrajudicial killings or
enforced disappearances - and in September 2008 filed criminal
complaints against members of the military he was able to
identify amongst his torturers. 

"I do not want this ordeal to happen to anybody else. I wish
that the extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture in my
country will stop […] I hope that President Gloria Arroyo will
end the impunity," Manalo told the UN committee. 

>WCC work on human rights:
>http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3111

>WCC member churches in the Philippines:
>http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4679

42nd Session of the UN Committee against Torture:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/cats42.htm

Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.