NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF LAW

LAOAG CITY

Topic: SC orders military to producebodies of missing UP studentsSource: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/j...060720met8.htmlName of Student : ELRENEO R. CASTRO

THE Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the military to produce two missing University of the Philippines students on July 24 at the Court of Appeals, the ABS-CBN news website reported.

The appellate court is the sole court that hears habeas corpus petitions.

Relatives of the two students on Monday filed a petition for habeas corpus before the Supreme Court to compel the military to present before the court their bodies, after they were allegedly abducted by soldiers last month.

Family members of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeo, along with peasant leader Manuel Marino, filed the petition after expressing fear that they might no longer be alive.

Named respondents in the suit were Maj. Gen. Romeo Tolentino, Northern Luzon commander; Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, 7th Infantry Division commander; Lt. Col. Rogelio Boac, Task Force Bulacan commander; a certain Lieutenant Samson, commanding officer of the Hagonoy army detachment; and Arnel Enriquez, a soldier under Lieutenant Samson.

The lawyers Rex Fernandez and Alni Foja filed the petition on behalf of Erlinda and Asher Cadapan, mother and brother of Sherly, and Concepcion Empeo, Karens mother. The students disappeared shortly after going to Bulacan to research the plight of poor farmers in the area.

They were staying at Marinos place at the time of their abduction by suspected Army soldiers.

The parents of Cadapan and Empeno went to Hagonoy, Bulacan, on Friday after learning their daughters might have been buried in a lot where local folk discovered three unidentified bodies.

They were accompanied by leaders of the human-rights group Karapatan. Bulacan and nearby provinces in Central Luzon are known hotbeds of the communist New Peoples Army, which President Arroyo has vowed to wipe out in two years.

REACTION

The spate of extra-judicial killings in the Philippines as exemplified in the above clipping is a manifestation of one of the many human rights violations in this country. In here, two (2) UP students, known to be activists, were alleged to be killed by authorities in relation to their acts of voicing out their sentiments with the failure of the government to address social and economic problems that are affecting its people, another clear but silent violation of our rights for good standard of living. 2