Where is Luisa Posa?

 

Perspective

Rowena V. Guanzon

April 24, 2007

 

 

 

Where is Luisa Posa?

 

 

I had the shivers when a friend told me that Luisa “Luing” Posa was abducted in Oton, Iloilo on  April  12, 2007  together with a companion who is a member of SELDA, an organization that works for the rights of political detainees.  It is the year 2007, twenty years after the EDSA Revolution, and that twenty years should have been more than enough time for democracy to fully work.  Luisa Posa’s abduction has absolutely no justification and is a violation of her human rights.  It also gives us citizens a feeling of insecurity when a democratic system of government is supposed to be protecting all persons’ human rights and yet the law enforcement agencies are washing their hands on this issue.

 

Luisa Posa was arrested and detained for about six years during Martial Law and escaped her guards.  Before my father Judge Sixto R. Guanzon transferred to the Regional Trial Court of Bacolod, he was presiding judge in a sala in Iloilo City, where he was in good company with Judge Tito Gustilo and  the late Judge Felino Garcia, Sr. A few years after Luisa Posa  escaped from her captors, she was accused of illegal possession of firearms and the case was raffled to Judge Sixto Guanzon. I was told that when it was announced that the case was to be heard in Judge Guanzon’s sala, the human rights lawyers in the courtroom clapped.

 

Luisa was arrested inside the house of an acquaintance of hers whom she was visiting, and the “evidence” was taken from that house.  When the firearm was going to be introduced as evidence by the prosecution, Judge Guanzon denied its admissibility on the ground that the firearm was allegedly taken by the police from the house which was not owned or rented by Luisa Posa.  Judge Guanzon transferred to Bacolod City, but that case was eventually dismissed.  When Judge Guanzon turned 80 two years ago, we gave him a party in L’Fisher Hotel, and Luisa Posa, together with her daughter who is now a law graduate, attended.

 

 

Luisa Posa, who was legendary in her youth, was a subject matter in our many dinner conversations at home.  We admire women like her who, against many odds, have succeeded in moving on with their lives and work for the betterment of other people’s lives. Luing has a degree in Education (cum laude) from Central Philippine University and is a mother of three. To date, the police or the military has no clue as to who abducted her, but friends of Luing strongly suspect that it was  the military that  abducted her.  The military points a finger at the New People’s Army, who has denied the abduction.

 

This is not the tenth or 20^th abduction that occurred in the last five years.  Hundreds of activists have disappeared, and it is worrisome that the military is very quiet about it.  If it was not the military who abducted Luisa Posa and her male companion, the least that they could do is look for her. The least that we all could do is ask where she is, to pressure the police and the military to find her. If we remain quiet, these people will be emboldened to abduct activists and journalists.  We cannot accept a democratic governance where our fellow human beings disappear and none of the agencies of government can be held accountable for finding her.

 

Of the politicians in Regional 6, only Congressman Arthur Defensor has condemned the abduction. I haven’t heard that the National Bureau of Investigation is making an effort to locate Luisa Posa, and it is an agency of the government that has access to information and “intelligence reports.”

 

While Luisa and her family of Luing suffer and those of us who care are helpless, the politicians continue to court the votes of the Ilonggos, unmindful of the abduction of Luisa and her companion, as if it were the most ordinary thing.

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On 16 July 2007, Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno and the Supreme Court convened a national summit on the killings and disappearances of activists and other persons.

Among the recommendations is for the Commission on Human Rights to have power of prosecution and not merely investigation. The Chairperson of the Commissionon Human Rights in the Philippines is Dr. PUrificacion Valera-Quisumbing, former professor of law in the University of the Philippines, formerly with Unicef Bangkok. Her husband is Justice of the Supreme Court, Leonardo A Quisumbing

 

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