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‘Remains’ of missing UP coed exhumed in P’sinan

LABRADOR, Pangasinan – The mother of missing University of the Philippines student Sherlyn Cadapan has struggled long and hard to find her daughter, hopping from one military camp to another, believing that soldiers forcibly took and detained her for being an activist.

On March 13, a team of forensic experts from the Commission on Human Rights and UP exhumed the body of an unidentified woman, who was found burned and abandoned in this town eight months ago, from the municipal cemetery.

The body was immediately transported to the UP laboratory for scientific analysis, including autopsy and DNA test, for identification.

Linda Cadapan, Sherlyn’s mother, told reporters she has a gut feel that this could be the closure she has been waiting for.

Mrs. Cadapan noted that 80 percent of the dead woman’s features are “very similar” to her daughter’s.

Citing pictures taken of the dead woman’s burnt body when it was found in a vacant grassy lot here on July 14 last year, Mrs. Cadapan said the shape of the victim’s face, nose, hair, extremities, and the shape of her feet resembled her daughter’s.

CHR Commissioner Wilhelm Soriano, who is in-charge of the National Capital Region and Region 1, joined the team that exhumed and transported the woman’s body from the cemetery to Manila.

He said CHR and UP forensic experts acted on the request of Mrs. Cadapan, who initially sought the help of the human rights group Karapatan after getting reports on a woman’s burnt body found in Barangay Bolo here.

Sherlyn, together with another UP student, Karen Empeno, has been missing since June 26, 2006 after soldiers allegedly abducted them in Hagonoy, Bulacan.

The two students were allegedly forcibly taken by military men while doing research in a farming community in Barangay San Miguel.

About a year and a half after their purported abduction, a witness, Raymund Manalo, appeared before the Court of Appeals and confirmed the suspicions of the two students’ families that they were abused and tortured by their abductors.

Empeno’s mother, Connie, was present in yesterday’s exhumation of the remains, which she hopes are Sherlyn’s. – KA