SOURCE: World Council of Churches – News Release, 9/04/2009 16:27:56, Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363, media@wcc-coe.org

Pastor leaves prison last year

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 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, 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 6363
media@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.