SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 is a day that many of us will remember not because it is a joyous occasion. We knew that this day will come eventually. But what makes this day a momentous one is that we have waited for this for far too long that its arrival comes like a deadening shock.
Twelve years ago, the long vigil began with a search. News broke that there were two missing UP students, Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, who were abducted by state agents under the command of General Jovito Palparan. It is a fact that has been proven without a shadow of a doubt in court that day.
Palparan, in his final defense last February 16, 2018 in the same court, revealed that the two were actual targets of the government's counter-insurgency operations in Bulacan during his tenure as military commander in the area because of their links to the New People's Army. Karen and Sherlyn were never seen again by their friends and families since that fateful 26th of June of 2006 when they were taken. The horrendous days, months, and years of searching and waiting began.
In the same breath that we whisper the names of Karen and She, we also now utter the names of Connie Empeño and Erlinda Cadapan, the mothers of the disappeared. Their tenacity and courage facing up to the whole military establishment over the years, searching in military camps and standing up before them in court, have made them legends for many in the people's movement. Before the intimidation and coddling of state forces of their beloved butcher general and the long and arduous court trial, the mothers could only draw strength from the memory of their own brave daughters who remain missing.
One can only imagine their regret and frustration coming up empty after all those years of searching for their daughters. They were made to disappear that was clear to the mothers and though their whereabouts were unknown, they sought reprieve from the courts to be granted justice and a case was filed before the Bulacan courts in 2011.
It can be said that it was Palparan's own hand and hubris that did him in. It was the testimony of Raymond Manalo, a farmer who was also abducted by the military on February 2006 from Bulacan and similarly accused of being a rebel or rebel sympathizers together with his brother, that revealed Palparan's culpability to the abduction of Karen and She.
According to Raymond in his testimony, they were kept in military camps between the time of their abduction, where they were beaten up and tortured and made to undertake menial work. One time, he attempted to escape but was caught. Gasoline was poured over him and the soldiers debated whether or not to set him on fire.
In one of those months while under detention, he was summoned and met General Palparan in person who told him that if he tries to escape again, his parents in Bulacan will be killed. Upon the General's orders, he was sent to their parents' house with a metal chain tied to his waist in order to tell them to stop filing cases in the courts in his behalf. He was brought back to the military camp where he continued serving the officers undertaking menial tasks such as cooking, washing cars, and feeding livestock.
One time, Raymond saw a girl in Camp Tecson in the house where he was made to stay. The girl whose feet was chained to the bed told him that she also met Palparan, who tortured her since the day she was taken. Palparan wanted her to confess to being a rebel, she said. She introduced herself as Sherlyn. It was a sad confirmation of the mothers' worst fears.
One day in April 2017, almost after a year after the two UP students were abducted, Raymond Manalo saw Sherlyn and another girl he would later identify as Karen Empeño, bounded, dragged out, and beaten. They were electrocute and subjected to water torture with soldiers playing with their naked bodies. Raymond was ordered to wash the women's clothes the next day where he saw chunks of blood on their underwear.
The Manalo brothers managed to escape a few months later on August 2017 and Raymond swore to himself that justice would be given to him and his family, as well as for Karen and Sherlyn who he learned remained missing at that time and till this day. Raymond's cry for justice was also the same as the cry that came from the desperate mothers of the disappeared all these years.
Last 17th of September 2018, their cries and our prayers for justice for Karen and She before the courts have finally been heard. May these men without conscience, those named and unnamed, receive their just comeuppance for the dastardly deeds they committed to helpless human beings. May this serve as a warning that the people's movement never forgets and the day of reckoning will always bear down upon the guilty no matter how long is the wait. The vigil is long but we will wait.