Abduction attempt revealed

ILOILO CITY – A top official of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Panay narrowly escaped an alleged attempt to abduct or assassinate him, militant groups here claimed.

Aurelio Bosque, spokesperson of Bayan-Panay, said several unidentified men in plain clothes, and riding motorcycles, followed him from their office in Jaro District on Monday and pursued him even until he and two companions sought refuge at a Kababayan Center.

“Their intentions were more than just surveillance because they kept on following us even if they were aware that we already spotted them,” Bosque claimed in a press conference.

He said the two men followed him even after he rode a passenger jeepney going to the city proper. Their two vehicles had no plate numbers, he said.

Bosque said he was joined by two of his companions on the jeepney after it bumped another vehicle at the Jaro public plaza.

While the accident was being settled by traffic enforcers, one of the men who had been following him also got on the jeepney. He said they decided to go to a Kababayan Center in Barangay Montinola when they noticed the motorcycle men still following them. There was no policeman at the center, so they took a taxi to the Jaro police station with the motorycycle-riding men still following them.

Anticipating an attack, they decided to go back to the Kababayan Center, sought the help of Barangay Captain Buenvenido Lago and called the police.

Bosque said policemen from the Jaro police station confronted the men but let them go after they showed papers for the motorcycle and denied they were following Bosque.

Militant groups claimed military agents were involved in the incident.

“It fits the pattern of the rising number of abduction and killings,” Hope Hervilla, regional coordinator of Bayan Muna, said.

The Army's 3rd Infantry Division denied any involvement in the incident.

“It has been their practice to blame us and the AFP for incidents like this. But as we have repeatedly said, activists who shout and march in the streets are not our targets,” Lt. Col. Erwin de Asis, 3ID spokesperson, said in a telephone interview.

Capt. Lowen Gil Marquez, chief of the AFP’s 32nd Civil Relation Unit, dismissed the allegations as “propaganda” and said it is part of the “grand plan” of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing New People's Army to “destroy the credibility of the AFP in order to create an environment of hatred against the government.”

Janne Baterna, an official of the Iloilo chapter of the National Union of People's Lawyers, said they will file a petition for a Writ of Amparo against the Armed Forces of the Philippines as a safeguard against possible attacks against Bosque.*NPB