Since the re-initiation of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process (Government of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines) the most pressing issue, at least for the NDFP, has been JASIG. JASIG, or the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees is designed to offer all NDFP members connected with the Peace Process legal protection from arrest and prosecution as well as freedom of movement. While initially, just after the Peace Process re-re-opened [sic], JASIG seemed to be of little concern, it has since turned into the proverbial white elephant.
President Aquino ensured that NDFP Peace Panel Chairman Luis G.Jalandoni and his wife, NDFP Peace Panelist Connie Ledesma each had their names removed from the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) Persona Non-Grata List so that both could re-enter the Philippines (and then leave again when desired). Like virtually all of the chief ideologues of the CPP/NPA, of which the NDFP is merely a front, the couple remains ensconced in voluntary exile in the city of New Utrecht,in the Netherlands. Unlike the rest though, Jalandoni and Ledesma took Dutch citizenship years ago. In this way the couple has a much greater advantage than the rest of the CPP/NPA leadership because unlike their comrades (pun intended) they are somewhat free to travel, as long as it isn't to the Philippines. I say "somewhat" because in 2004, after lobbying by then-President Arroyo, the United States placed the CPP/NPA onto its list of terrorist organisations. Meanwhile, Jalandoni's elderly mother was near death and so the Government offered the ability to travel to and from the Philippines as a Good Will Gesture, though it was far short of the NDFP's "suggestion" that Aquino receive Jalandoni at the Presidential Palace.
President Aquino then enabled the BID modification for the couple and as he did so he took great pains to portray himself as taking the neccessary steps to re-implement JASIG. After the US declaration of the CPP/NPA as a terrorist entity the NPA had withdrawn from the Peace Process. The following year the Government unilaterally suspended JASIG, something it wasn't legally able to do since it is a bi-lateral agreement (though this being the Philippine Government that facts borders on irelevant). While the BID gesture was great in the immediate sense, the fact of the matter is that it seriously jeapordised all JASIG-protected persons.Though the re-implementation of JASIG merely amounted to the Government unilaterally deciding to recognise it.
Then, just hours before Round I of the Formal Talks began in Oslo on February 15th, 2011, the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) arrested yet another JASIG-protected person, CPP General Secretary Alan Jazmines. The AFP, when informed of Jazmines' status as a Consultant to the NDFP's Peace Panel offered this little gem, "To hell with JASIG." That about nails the GPH policy on the agreement to a tee. To smoothe things over, so to speak, GPH Peace Panel Chairperson Alexander "Alex" Padilla had Panelist Pablo "Pablito" Sanidad intercede in the case of one of the then eighteen JASIG-protected persons sitting in detention, Angelina "Angie" Bisuna Ipong.
Angie Ipong,a native of Bicol, obtained a BA in History from Ateneo de Naga University and then joined her husband Boy in performing lay missionary work for various Catholic organisations. Feeling unfufilled at her job reading History at Assumption College in Quezon Province's Lucena City, she and her husband Boy decided to devote themselves fulltime to their Catholic Faith. By the late-1970s the couple decided to move south, to Cebu City. While in Cebu the couple drifted into Liberation Theology, a variant of Catholicism that advocates direct Church involvement in the political process (Whatever happened to "Render unto Caesar"?), and while not condoning violence outright, offering plausability and rationalisation for it so as to allow a great many adherants to cross the fine line from multi-sectoral front partisanship right into violent activity and outright rebellion. Among the people the couple met while in Cebu were a group of radicalised priests from a Maryknoll Residence in Tagum (now Tagum City) in Mindanao's Davao del Norte Province. At the priests' invitation the Ipongs relocated to Tagum and took positions at the Maryknoll "Christian Formation Center".
It was in Tagum that the couple drifted closer to crossing that aforementioned fine line. Not long after, they left Tagum to work with "Rural Missionaries of the Philippines," or (RMP). Then, as now, RMP is a thinly verneered NPA multi-sectoral front organisation.Unlike most other front organisations that exist to serve a multitude of purposes benefiting the CPP/NPA, RPM exists chiefly as a format for political indoctrination directly into the CPP,and as a conduit into the NPA itself.
On November 20th, 1983 Boy Ipong joined scores of Church functionaries and lay people for a ferry ride to Cebu City to attend a Church gathering. The ferry, the Dona Cassandra, left Nasipit in Agusan del Norte Province overloaded and just as Typhoon Orchid began touching down in the Visayas Region. Early on the 21st, as the ship traversed the Surigao Strait in the Leyte Sea, the ferry capsised with at least 167 deaths out of a passenger and crew manifest of 387 people. Among the 167 was Boy Ipong.
Though Ms.Ipong eventually took the plunge and became a full-fledged member of the NPA, she tended to concentrate on the ideological end of the equation. Known to fellow NPA members as "Ka Nilda," Ms.Ipong focused her efforts on bringing more and more people into the fold. In fact, on March 8th, 2005 she had been conducting a forum on the CARHRIHL,or Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law facet of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process to a group of newly indoctrinared people gathered at a private home in Anastacia Missionary Village, in Barangay Lumbayao in the municipality of Aloran in Misamis Occidental Province. At 145PM she took a break and just as she began a light lunch a group of ten men, in military fatigues and skimasks (known locally as "bonnets") and carrying M16s entered the house and immediately surrounded the shocked women. Tying her hands behind her back and blindfolding her the men,a combination of AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) soldiers and officers from the PNP's (Philippines National Police) CIDG-10 (Criminal Investigations and Detection Group-Region-10) then led her out of the house and into incognito.
Immediately driven by van to 1ID (1st Infantry Division) Headquarters in the municipality of Labangan's Barangay Pulacan in Zamboanga del Sur Province.Arrested by virtue of warrants issued in Pagadian City and the town of Molave, both in that same province, as well as additional warrants in Misami Occidental Province's Oroquieta City, she was slapped with the usual generic charges applied to any and all mid to upper echelon NPA arrestees: Rebellion, Multiple Frustrated Murder, Arson, and so on. Barely subjected to interrogation while at Division Headquarters she was deemed high value enough to warrant a prompt transfer on March 12th to SOUTHCOM, the then unitary command responsible for all of Mindanao and its island possessions, at Camp Navarro in Zamboanga City, Zamboanga del Norte Province. It was there that Ms.Ipong's interrogation began.
As far as interrogations go it was a by the book (if THE book was at least 50 years old) almost anti-climatic affair. The first inquisitor was a junior officer who left her blindfoled (to re-inforce her vulnerability) and changed his rythym several times to keep her tense and off balance, berating her and often screaming threats. Ms.Ipong also claims to have been punched in the side during this and subsequent rounds of questioning.
Round II offered the first inquisitor's foil, the "good cop" of the well known "good cop:bad cop" routine. Removing Ms.Ipong's blindfold the senior officer acted enraged to find that she had been sleeping on a concrete floor and brusquely ordered inquisitor number one to immediately provide the detainee with a bed and took great pains to "admonish" the junior officer in the detainee's presence, warning him that he would be brought up on serious disciplinary charges if he ever came close to mis-treating any prisoner again. Of course this was entirely for her benefit since both inquisitors were running a standard interrogation technique. It is a very simple endeavour. Working with very basic human psychology, they soften up a subject by isolating them, removing any emotional footholds he or she may have retained. This is accomplished by interrupting the sleep pattern, serving a sub-standard diet, screaming at and insulting the subject and so on. Then, a new personality is introduced into the dynamic,a more senior officer so as to convey stability and reliability and instill trust. This senior officer "rights" most of the "wrongs" dished out by the first inquisitor. This naturally a initiates desire within the subject to please inquisitor number two, to show gratitude but mostly to avoid a repeat of the first round of interrogation.The inquisitors are alternated over a series of days,as was the case with Angie Ipong.
Round III saw the return of the first inquisitor, "Mr.Bad Cop." The junior office angrily ordered subordinates to remove the bed given to her by the second inquisitor, "Mr.Good Cop." Again her interrogator punched her in the side. Then the officer stepped it up a notch by ordering subordinate personnel to "strip" the then 60 year old woman naked. With her hands tied behind her back, and a blindfold over her eyes, Ms.Ipong maintains that the junior officer and his subordinates began touching her, squeezing her breasts and touching her genitals. Terrified Ms.Ipong pled with her tormentors, asking them to remember that she was 60 years old and that she was no different from their mothers or sisters. This caused the soldiers to laugh derisively, turning up the air conditioning to its maximum setting to offer even further discomfort. It was at this point that Ms.Ipong lost consciousness.
Coming to her senses the next morning, it took a few moments to realise she was naked, having been left exactly where she fell though sometime afterwards her blindfold had been removed. Hands still tied behind her back, but only loosely, as if to allow the prisoner to release herself when alone. Having gotten her hands free Ms.Ipong quickly dressed herself only to find just as she finished, that the callous junior officer had returned. That morning, March 13th, Round V of her interrogation began. Though she had been lying on the concrete floor all night a bed had been re-installed. Making a point to have it removed the officer had the blindfold re-applied and the hands re-bound, after having a subordinate forcefully pinion the detainee's hands behind her back. After punching her in her side once again the officer began his questioning.
By mid-morning her inquisitor exited and almost immediately the emphatic, courteous senior officer entered the room in tag team fashion. Round V began with the sentence again markedly demanding that her bed be re-installed he called the junior officer into the cell and threatened to have him court martialed for his "abuse" of Ms.Ipong. Dismissing him brusquely he downshifted and spoke tenderly to the frightened woman. He promised to have the junior officer docketed for his unseemly behavior but noted that he couldn't be on site 24 hours a day to protect her. He then played his hand; asking Ms.Ipong to "help" him, he offered to personally write down her answers, thus ensuring that they would be accurately recorded without omission OR embellishment and offered that this was the only way to neutralise the immediate threat posed by that abusive junior officer. If Ms.Ipong agreed to help him together they could ensure that no other prisoners would suffer from that same heartless treatment and abuse. Were the prisoner to question the correlation between her providing information and the disciplining of the unruly junior officer, the calm and reasonable senior officer would simply reply that were he to docket the abusive subordinate for his mistreatment of Ms.Ipong, his own superiors would assume that Ms.Ipong was lying or exaggerating about her mistreatment, something the senior officer wasn't able to personally witness. The powers that be would assume that the detainee was being manipulative but moreover, dishonest. However, IF he could show that the detainee had voluntarily provided even a scant modicum of information it would leave senior staff unable to make that point. Never having been arested or imprisoned Ms.Ipong had no way of knowing that this "kindly" senior officer was just as callous and manipulative as his junior counterpart.
With the completion of Round V Angelina "Angie" Bisuna Ipong was served with formal charges, delivered to SOUTHCOM Headquarters by a State Attorney on the afternoon of March 13th. Much to her suprise the 60 year old woman was notified that she was being saddled with Rebellion, Arson, Double Frustrated Murder, and Triple Frustrated Murder charges in three different venues. The three jurisdictions were:
1) Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur Province
2) Molave, Zamboanga del Sur Province
3) Oroquieta City, Misamis Occidental Province
The next day, March 14th, 2005, Ms.Ipong, sitting in a wheelchair, was subjected to the obligatory show and tell. The social hall at SOUTHCOM Headquarters was packed with leering media and grinning AFP officers who congratulated themselves on a job well done. With that anti-climatic apex the issue quickly devolved into one in which SOUTHCOM was being besieged by Leftis groups, both domestically and from abroad. Although the AFP can arrest people it cannot detain them passed tactical interrogation (though in reality it happens most of the time, my favorite case being a 10 year old boy who was brought to a battalion headquarters for questioning and then forcibly made into a houseboy for the post chaplain for four years). Interrogation having ended the AFP being under pressure, transferred custody of Ms.Ipong to the BJMP, or Bureau of Jail Management and Prisons, at its facility in the town of Ramon Magsaysay in Zamboanga del Sur Province. The problem with that ridiculous idea is that BJMP facilities are only allowed to detain sentenced prisoners. Pre-trial and trial detainees are relegated to LGU (Local Government Unit, as in municipalities and provinces) managed facilities.
So it was that on March 20th that the AFP was compelled to transport Ms.Ipong once again, this time to the Pagadian Reformatory Jail, the Pagadian City managed facility. It was here that Angelina "Angie" Bisuna Impong would spend the bulk of her imprisonment. Initially placed in a cell with nine other women, all incarcerated for criminal acts (as opposed to the Mass Murders Ms.Ipong was accused of commiting, which in her deluded mind, and the equally delusional minds of her NPA "comrades" constituted "political acts"), Ms.Ipong protested to the jail's administrative staff that such conditions were beneath her. For a moderate bribe she was allowed to sleep in the chapel for the rest of her time there. Bored beyond reason she then turned her attention towards gardening. Getting a parcel of land belonging to the jail Ms.Ipong began raising produce and flowers which she then began selling (so much for capitalism being evil). Finally joined by her fellow female inmates she then started a new venture, producing clothes via sewing machines and soon Ms.Ipong was controlling her own prison sweatshop, one of two businesses she began while still a prisoner. A third venture eventually followed, involving the manufacture of greeting cards that included pressed flowers from her prison garden.
After nearly four and a half years in the Pagadian Reformatory she was cleared of Rebellion in Court, with the prosecutor citing a lack of evidence.With that charge withdrawn it was time to travel to the next venue,Oroquieta City where she was lodged in the Misamis Occidental Provincial Jail. Not long after her arrival Ms.Ipong was able to have a foreign NGO donate three new sewing machines, enabling the then 64 year old woman to launch yet another prison-based garment business.The busy woman was also able to find the time needed to wite a book as well, though in reality it was written by Leftists in Manila and merely included a few recipes attributed to her and a couple of dozen "inspirational" letters written from prison. "The Letters and Diary of Angie B.Ipong," (Manila:InPeace) (2010) published via the Women and Children Concerns Committee of the NGO InPeace was an 85 page diatribe cum salad recipe compendium (I am 100% serious). The volume has been yet another moneymaking scheme with Ms.Ipong's supporters boosting sales with tales of suffering and oppression under the claim that all proceeds would be deposited in her legal support fund to pay for lawyers. In reality Ms.Ipong received absolutely free legal representation from local attorney Emiliano "Emil" Deleverio,Vice Chairperson of the multi-sectoral legal organisation UPLM (Union of People's Lawyers in Mindanao).
Fast forward to the February Talks in Oslo in 2011. As I have repeated ad naseum, the NDFP Peace Panel has been extremely focused upon contraventions of JASIG, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees. With the CPP's General Secretary Alan Jazmines being arrested mere hours before Round I began on February 15th the GPH Panel tried to appear magnanimous by having at least one of the eighteen JASIG-protected "Consultants" released. GPH Panel Chairperson Padilla chose the easiest choice, Ms.Ipong, who at 66 had become the nation's oldest "Political Prisoner."Panelist Pablo "Pablito" Sanidad was assigned to the task and immediately faxed a letter to Judge Bernadette S.Paredes Echinareal of Regional Trial Court (RTC) #36 in Oroquieta City where Ms.Ipong was dealing with the last of her criminal charges. Fully aware that that the defendant would be freed in a matter of weeks, Chairman Padilla viewed the Ipong Case as a win:win gambit. Needing a JASIG quick fix, he found a detainee whose release was imminent and simply had the release expedited.
On February 18th, 2011, Day 3 of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process, Angelina "Angie" Bisuna Ipong was released and re-gained her freedom, her dignity,and her life.
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