BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya – A militant group condemned authorities for the continued “illegal detention” of a woman peasant leader, who it said also worked as an El Niño consultant at the time of her “unlawful arrest” in northern Cagayan last March 22.
The Families of the Disappeared for Justice or Desaparecidos said Myrna Cruz Abraham, 55, is now being detained at the Tuguegarao City jail on allegations that she is a high-ranking communist leader in the region.
But Col. Loreto Magundayao, chief of civil-military operations of the Isabela-based Army’s 5th Infantry Division, said Villanueva is the second deputy secretary of the Cagayan Valley Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army.
Last March 22, at 6:30 p.m,.Abraham was abducted by four men who identified themselves as policemen at Pamplona Cagayan after she alighted from a Gabriel Liner bus. Witnesses say that she was forced into a white van.
This was immediately reported by eyewitnesses to a nearby PNP headquarter in Pamplona. The police who responded to the report did not catch the abductors.
Myrna is a long-time organizational development consultant for Danggayan – the
Cagayan Valley chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and a partner people’s organization of the Regional Development Center – KADUAMI of which she was a former board member. She is also a member of Anakpawis - Cagayan Valley Chapter. She was a teacher of Jose Rizal University and formerly Colegio del Buen Conseho.
On March 24, her colleagues were able to locate her. After her abduction, Abraham said she was brought in a safehouse and subjected to interrogation by a certain “Raymond Wong” who claimed to “belong to the Philippine government”who insisted that she was “Nel Villanueva”.
She is now detained in BJMP, Tuguegarao, Cagayan for violation of Comelec Resolution 8714 as well as for murder of a certain Johnny D. Belo of Amulong, Cagayan on Oct. 23, 2002 which the 17th IBPA filed against her.
Among the accused in the murder charge is Nel Villanueva. The 17th IBPA filed the R.A. 8714 because allegedly they found two hand grenades among her things. Myrna denied that she had hand grenades in her possession and said that these were planted on her belongings.
Her abductors took all her three bags, wallet, identification cards, credit cards, ATM cards, cellphone, a hard drive, and a USB flash disk.
Her family remains worried on her condition in jail and are hoping that the trumped up charges against her will be immediately dismissed.
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