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MANILA, Philippines -- Filipino-American Melissa Roxas said Wednesday she was not the woman in a video presented by two lawmakers supposedly to prove she was a communist rebel, and wondered if the source of the video was one of her abductors.
Roxas, who wept when she testified at a House hearing, disclosed that during her captivity, one of her abductors had shown her a picture that was apparently taken from the video.
She also insisted that she was not a member of the New People's Army and said she was simply an activist.
“I denied that was me [in the picture] and that's not me, and I'd like to know who presented those videos. Palparan and Alcover, where did you get those? Did RC give them to you?” Roxas asked, her voice rising.
RC refers to the man who allegedly tortured Roxas at an Army camp in Laur town, Nueva Ecija province.
In her opening statement, she insisted that she was an artist and activist, and that she did "not like to dignify the allegations being hurled at me now as they only echo what my abductors have been forcing me to admit during my interrogation and illegal incommunicado detention.”
At the same hearing, Commission on Human Rights Chairperson Leila de Lima said her agency has established that the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel “Love in the Time of Cholera” that the abductors gave Roxas was bought from a National Bookstore branch in Cabanatuan City, the capital of Nueva Ecija. The discovery was made with the cooperation of National Bookstore and verified through the book's bar code.
De Lima has said that Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija was being considered as among the places where Roxas could have been held during her six-day captivity.
De Lima said it was important to determine the source of the video to establish if it was authentic, and added that even if a person is a rebel, this would not diminish the allegations of torture.
“Her affiliation doesn't matter. It is a basic human right... freedom from torture. Nobody deserves to be tortured, not even prisoners of war,” she said.
