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FLORIDABLANCA, Pampanga, Philippines — Army officials in Central Luzon have expressed readiness to attend the hearings at the Court of Appeals on the writ of amparo filed by Filipino American activist Melissa Roxas.
Roxas is set to return to the country on Monday night to pursue her petition for protection from state agents under a writ of amparo. She has accused military agents of abducting her and her two companions—Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc—in Tarlac last May and torturing her in what she believed to be a military camp.
A writ of amparo is a legal remedy devised by the Supreme Court to stop extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the country by allowing political activists to seek court protection from state agents who have threatened them and deprived them of liberty.
"We're willing to attend the hearings if called by the courts and on orders of our general headquarters," Major General Ralph Villanueva, commander of the Army's 7th Infantry Division, said in an interview on the sidelines of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's visit here on Monday.
Villanueva, as 7th ID commander, has control over troops in Central Luzon and runs Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.
Roxas, a member of the United States chapter of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance), said she, Carabeo, and Handoc were taken to what she presumed was a military camp in Central Luzon.
Brigadier General Gene Pirino, commander of the 701st Infantry Brigade, which operates in Tarlac including La Paz town where Roxas was abducted by 15 armed men, said he has prepared to face the court.
Villanueva said he and his soldiers had nothing new to admit or deny about the alleged abduction and torture.
"We have submitted our report [to the general headquarters last June]. It's the same," he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The report's findings said no soldier belonging to the 7th ID was involved in the abduction and that Fort Magsaysay was not used to detain, interrogate, or torture Roxas and her companions.
Pirino said his troops were not stationed or operating in La Paz at the time of the abduction. He said they were busy helping victims of typhoon victims in nearby Pangasinan.
Officials of at least five Army units based in Fort Magsaysay have not issued statements on Roxas’s allegations.
