By Joel Guinto
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 02:16pm (Mla time) 01/04/2007
TWO detained rebel soldiers are being “mentally tortured” by the military, their wives claimed, and sources said the move was meant to force them into signing a prepared affidavit that would name their alleged coddlers.
But Major Ernesto Torres, Army spokesman, denied the claims, saying Second Lieutenant Aldrin Baldonado and First Lieutenant Sonny Sarmiento were being “treated well, according to their rights.”
Asked if the two were being forced to sign an affidavit, Torres said: “Hindi ko alam ‘yun [I don’t know that]. Regarding affidavits, the DoJ [Department of Justice] and the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] are in charge. The role of the Army is on their detention.”
Baldonado and Sarmiento have been kept in solitary confinement, with no reading materials, no grooming aids such as hair combs, razors, and nailcutters, and are served the same food in small portions everyday, said Wilma Baldonado in a phone interview.
Their bed and toilet are crammed inside a single-window cell at the Intelligence Service Group (ISG) compound in Fort Bonifacio. They are not allowed to leave their cells, Mrs. Baldonado said in a phone interview.
The two are allowed to accept visitors only for half an hour during weekends. And while being led to and out of the visitors’ area, they are blindfolded and handcuffed, she said.
During one visit, Baldonado said her three-year-old son got scared when he saw his father handcuffed and blindfolded.
“They are applying mental torture. That is what the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] is doing,” she said.
“They should take our husbands out of solitary confinement,” she said.
Venus Sarmiento said her husband looked “thin, pale, and very weak” the last time she visited him at the ISG.
Sources said Baldonado and Sarmiento were “tortured” to force them to sign the affidavit, allegedly prepared by the Philippine Army.
“They will stay in solitary confinement until they cooperate,” a source close to Sarmiento said.
A source close to Baldonado said the rebel soldier would never sign the affidavit allegedly being forced on them by the Army.
“He is afraid for his family’s safety. The people they were forced to implicate could get back on his family,” the source said, adding Baldonado was being asked to implicate opposition figures in his escape. They were not named.
The source close to Sarmiento said Sarmiento and Baldonado were the only former fugitives that have not signed the supposed affidavit, drawing the ire of the Army leadership.
“Inuutusan sila, magturo sila kagaya ni San Juan [They were ordered to implicate people like San Juan],” Mrs. Baldonado said.
She was referring to First Lieutenant Lawrence San Juan, a former rebel fugitive who had implicated opposition figures following his capture in Batangas province on Feb. 21, 2006.
San Juan escaped from Fort Bonifacio on Jan. 17, 2006 with Sarmiento and First Lieutenants Nathaniel Rabonza and Patricio Bumidang Jr.
Sarmiento, Rabonza, and Bumidang were arrested at a safehouse in Quezon City on July 27, 2006 with Baldonado, Army Second Lieutenant Angelbert Gay, and Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Kiram Sadava.
Explosives, firearms, and a blueprint of the Batasan Complex were seized from the group. Authorities said this uncovered an alleged plan by rebel soldiers to disrupt President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address on July 24, 2006.
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