Abduction as policy

Who hit the replay button? Rodolfo Lozada's dawn press conference stripped away the regime's fig leaf: that he vanished, then sought protection, as National Police chief Avelino Razon mumbled.

He did not. Lozada told the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, nameless armed men abducted him, with airport officials approval. They trundled him away from family, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, and media curious if he'd testify on the broadband scandal.

Under duress, Lozada signed an affidavit that he “asked for security”. His abductors drove him from Manila , Cavite to Los Baños -- until directed to return because “media was red hot” on the trail. They dumped Lozada at La Salle --- where he received sanctuary.

This country is no stranger to abductions The Abu Sayyaf kidnaps for loot, underscored in the Los Palmas kidnapping. Over 156 Filipino Chinese have been abducted for ransom, including Coca Cola Export Corporation's Betty Sy. And the New People's Army abducts, both for ideology and cash.

But these were brigands. In contrast, state agents kidnapped Lozada. We're all in a pickle when government becomes the criminal. Protectors we train and arm, with our taxes, turn predators.

This replays the May 1970 abduction of the Chinese Commercial News publisher and editor. Quintin and Rizal Yuyitung were kidnapped by military and immigration agents. Shoved abroad an Air Force C-47, they were handed to Taipei .

Like Violeta Lozada, Veronica Yuyitung didn't know what happened to her husband. Like then Immigration Commissioner Edmundo Reyes, General Razon denied they were abducted. Quintin was picked up at the Manila Overseas Press Club. Lozada was bundled off from the Manila International Airport 's arrival tube.

Senator Jovito Salonga said, in a Senate privilege speech, laws were stomped on. A Filipino citizen, Quintin was “deported”. The kidnapping short-circuited a pending petition, before the Supreme Court, questioning Commissioner Reyes' jurisdiction. But “there is much law at the end of a bayonet.”

Misuse of state power for crime never tainted records of presidents like Manuel Quezon, Elpidio Quirino, Corazon Aquino, Carlos Garcia or Sergio Osmeña – although his grandson Tomas, as Cebu City mayor, winks at 183 vigilante executions.

Marcos' imprimatur, in the Yuyitung case, developed into full-blown policy under martial law. “A country with a remarkable constitutional tradition turned into a gulag of safe houses where members of the Armed Forces (were) responsible for acts of unusual brutality,” Amnesty International found.

Between 1975 and 1985, some 737 Filipinos “disappeared”. Among these were sons of Supreme Court Justices Abraham Sarmiento and Pedro Yap of Cebu . Panfilo Lacson was a “star” of Marcos' torture agency: the Military Intelligence Security Group. Perhaps he remembers some desaparecidos?

A Pagcor employee Edgardo Bentain filmed Joseph Estrada playing baccarat. He disappeared. The burned remains of abducted Salvador “Bubby” Dacer were recovered in a shallow grave in Cavite . “People of then Philippine National Police chief (now senator) Panfilo Lacson were linked to the murders,” Sun Star's Bong Wenceslao writes. “Ironically, Lacson is one of those investigating the NBN deal.”

Inquirer's front page run a striking photo of Lozada, with a “security cordon” of unarmed Catholic nuns, entering La Salle 's press conference. Who hit the replay button?

Just before Marcos fell, Lin Neumann wrote in the San Francisco Examiner of a drunk Minister Jolly Benitez saying: “Marcos is finished. And it's all because of those nuns. How were we to know those f-----g nuns would sit on those ballot boxes.”

Do those nuns, at La Salle , also signal the beginning of an end?*

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