“They tag meddlesome social workers as communists and ruin their reputation—and let them try to defend themselves.”
We were gratified to learn that a judge in Agusan del Sur dismissed the kidnapping charges against Dr. Natividad “Dr. Naty” Castro, a doctor who was snatched away by police and military agents from her home in San Juan City in February and flown to the province without the knowledge of her lawyers or her family. There she was detained at a provincial jail for 42 days.
In dismissing the charges against Castro, a doctor who helped poor communities, acting Presiding Judge Fernando Fudalan Jr. of the Bayugan City Regional Trial Court, found there was no probable cause in the state’s case.
Fudulan also said police and the prosecutor denied Castro’s right to due process when they did not subpoena her to answer the kidnapping charges on the excuse that she was an alleged member of the New People’s Army (NPA) who had “no permanent address.”
“A preliminary investigation without a subpoena being issued to the respondent is offensive to due process,” Fudalan said in his ruling. “Either intentional or a product of omission, the same produces a serious effect repugnant to respondent’s right to liberty.”
Despite the court’s harsh rebuke, the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Department of Justice were unrepentant, and continued their red-tagging.
“The PNP reserves the right to seek further legal remedies that may convince the court to reconsider,” PNP public information officer Police Brig. Gen. Roderick Augustus Alba said in a statement.
“We do not see this particular case involving a ranking member of the central committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, as a setback in the continuing campaign to account for persons wanted by the law, especially those identified with domestic terrorist groups and its affiliate organizations,” Alba added.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said his department could conduct another preliminary investigation so that Castro could disprove the allegations against her, apparently disregarding the long-held notion that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
But such are the ways of the system of McCarthyism that this administration has embraced.
Tag meddlesome social workers as communists and ruin their reputation—and let them try to defend themselves.
After his own reign of red-baiting terror, US Senator Joseph McCarthy was finally exposed as the cruel bully he was on national TV, when a lawyer working for the US Army, defended one of the senator’s victims, telling him: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”
It is high time someone asked the same question to the members of the benighted National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, which has been behind the ongoing red witch hunt—but then, we already know the answer.