Satur slams abduction of youngest Bayan Muna nat'l council member

House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Representative Satur C. Ocampo on Wednesday called on state security forces to surface Gilbert Rey "Jing" Cardino, the partylist group's chairperson for South Cotabato and regional coordinator for SOCSKSARGEN.

The call was aired hours after Cardino was abducted at Crossing, Barrio 2, Koronadal City.

Meanwhile, members of the family of Bayan Muna coordinator Wednesday pointed to military agents as behind the abduction as they also appealed to his captors to release him as soon as possible.

"We suspect military agents under Military Intelligence Group and Intelligence Security Unit are behind in this abduction. We are asking the captors to free him. Although he is an activist, he is kind and was never a trouble maker," Alejandro Cardino told reporters.

The victim's wife, Sheila Mae, confirmed that her husband had been receiving threats.

"He told me that there's a group of men tailing him. To those who are holding my husband, please release him. We have a five-year-old kid and he is not bad," Sheila Mae said.

The 27-year old Cardino is the youngest member of Bayan Muna's National Council, the partylist group's second-highest governing body, equivalent to the national directorates of major political parties.

"We condemn the abduction of Jing, and join his family in demanding that he be surfaced immediately and without any preconditions," Ocampo, author of the House-approved anti-enforced disappearances bill now pending in the Senate, said in a statement.

"The state security forces are the principal suspects in Jing's enforced disappearance. The AFP and the PNP have long considered Bayan Muna members as enemies of the state under the counterinsurgency Operation Plan Bantay Laya," said Ocampo.

According to Ocampo, "extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances continue to occur unabated because President Arroyo and the Armed Forces of the Philippines keep themselves in a state of denial, the Intelligence Service of the AFP persist in its arrogant defiance of the Commission on Human Rights subpoenas."

"The climate of fear and the culture of impunity maintained by Mrs. Arroyo and the AFP allowed Jing's abduction," said Ocampo.

Cardino's abduction occurred a day after ISAFP Chief Delfin Bangit snubbed the hearings of the CHR over the April 28, 2007 disappearance of Jonas Burgos, the activist son of press freedom icon Joe Burgos.

Bayan Muna Rep. Joel Virador, who worked closely with Cardino during the partylist electoral campaign, joined Ocampo in demanding that the President, as commander-in-chief, issue an order on the military and police to surface Jing and Jonas, and to stop enforced disappearances.

"Without such an explicit, publicly-stated order, more activists will either be killed or abducted," said Virador. "The Supreme Court dismissal of the rebellion case against us should also compel the government to stop the violent attacks against our members."

Virador also called on Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines commission on justice and peace chairperson and Koronadal Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez to condemn Cardino's abduction and seek that he be returned to his family. - GMANews.TV