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MANILA, Philippines?Malacañang on Wednesday announced that it had ordered the Department of National Defense to investigate the allegation of Filipino-American activist Melissa Roxas that she was abducted and tortured by military agents in June.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, also chairman of the Presidential Human Rights Committee, acknowledged that the allegation was another blow to the Arroyo administration?s effort to improve its human rights records.
?Yes, definitely,? he said. ?That?s why I immediately requested the (secretary of national defense) to have an investigation conducted.?
Ermita?s announcement came even as the US embassy announced that it had made inquiries with the Philippine government on the allegations made by Roxas, a US citizen.
On the other hand, the Department of Foreign Affairs is leaving the investigation of the alleged abduction and torture to the judicial system.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Special Concerns Rafael Seguis said the Roxas case was already being investigated by the Department of Justice and that a petition for writ of amparo was being addressed by the Supreme Court, through the Court of Appeals, which the high court tasked with handling amparo cases.
"Let's go to the normal judicial system. They are already responding to it," Seguis told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an telephone interview on Wednesday.
He said the DFA had not received any request for information about the alleged incident from the United States embassy in Manila on this matter.
In asking for a writ of amparo or protection from state agents and their superiors whom she accused of doing her harm, Roxas detailed the beatings she took at what she believed to be a military camp after she was abducted in Tarlac last June, while she was on a medical mission.
Roxas, a health volunteer of the Bayan-USA, said she was abducted and tortured by what she believed to be military agents while she was on a medical mission in La Paz, Tarlac. She said her torturers were forcing her to admit that she was a member of the New People?s Army.
Roxas has filed for a writ of amparo with the Court of Appeals against President Macapagal-Arroyo and top military and defense officials. The writ of amparo is a form of legal protection for those whose lives and liberty are being threatened by state agents.
Government officials identified as respondents in a writ of amparo would be held accountable if anything happens to a person who has been granted the writ.
