Sagada/Benguet Nightmare

**arch_benjie** · February 25th, 2006 09:59 AM

haha.. natawa ko dito.... me mga menor pa... this is an impossible story... but chances are....malas lang talaga

anyways last week we've been there... torture tested my everest 4x2, we had our own "pre qualification for amazing race contest" fun with my wife and my 2 boys, (3yo and 6yo)...galing ng caves!...mountain view for 12hrs drive is breathtaking, the halsema and sagada road is being paved right now (with PGMA's direct funding and hopefully will b finished before the next administration)...lots of tourist and backpackers around...the place is SUPER!...cheaper rates.. cleaner air a way lot better than baguio...its a place for a good retreat, bonding, soul searching and rediscovery of the beauty of this sad country....pati ba naman yun bababuyin pa??? wag naman na!....

**umzzzzz** · February 25th, 2006 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by 20vanda01

11. Frencess Ann Galdonez Bernal, 15 yrs old, Camupang,

Marikina City

15 yo na, girl pa. parang hindi kapanipaniwala...dito ko lang nabasa to ah. wala pang ganito sa radyo at newspaper and it's been a week since the incident happened.
sana hindi totoo. maganda kasi yung place. baka matakot na ang mga taong pumunta doon.

**huggybear** · February 25th, 2006 11:34 AM

Another hoax running around in e-mails. baka galit sa pnp gumawa nito

**falken** · February 25th, 2006 12:01 PM

I think it's a hoax, if they were able to write to the governor, how come there's nothing on the news? And why haven't their friends or relatives approached the media?

**huggybear** · February 25th, 2006 01:10 PM

I take back what I said earlier. Just read the news just today on Inquirer

**falken** · February 25th, 2006 03:08 PM

It's not a hoax after all:

Clamor grows for backpackers’ release

First posted 09:26pm (Mla time) Feb 24, 2006
By Vincent Cabreza, Desiree Caluza
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the February 25, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

BAGUIO CITY -- The controversy hounding the arrest of 11 backpackers for their alleged role in an attack on a military detachment in Benguet has drawn the attention of some of the country’s amateur musicians.

On Friday, 30 members of punk and rock bands from Pangasinan, Metro Manila, Tarlac, Laguna and Davao City, set up camp at a park here to demand the release of the 11 backpackers who were accused of being New People’s Army rebels.

Beverly Longid, vice chair of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance, said the backpackers are musicians who belong to a crusade called “Punk’s Not Dead.”

Longid said the group arrived a few days early to see this year’s Baguio Flower Festival parades, so they hitched a ride to Sagada, Mt. Province only to be detained at a police checkpoint in Buguias, Benguet, on Feb. 14.

The backpackers’ parents appealed for their release, saying their children were tortured.

The Cordillera Peoples Democratic Front has claimed responsibility for the raid where two soldiers and a militiaman were killed.

The suspects bore signs of injuries, the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) said on Wednesday.

Senior Supt. Marvin Bolabola, CIDG Cordillera director, said the medical reports indicated that the 11 backpackers, now detained at the Benguet Provincial Jail, bore bruises.

The Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag) and the CHRA are working to get two juveniles among this group of backpackers released to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, said Longid.

Bolabola said he would help facilitate the transfer of a 15-year-old girl from Marikina City and a 16-year-old boy from Pasig City.

Flag and CHRA would sue police using a testimony made before the National Bureau of Investigation last week by Rundren Lao, 24, the backpacker who police accused as the leader of the rebels.

Lao jumped off a jeepney ferrying him to the Benguet prosecutor’s office on Feb. 15, and surrendered to Ricardo Pangan, NBI Cordillera director, to testify that the backpackers had been tortured.

Charged with robbery with homicide were Lao; the two minors; Anderson Alonzo, 18, and Jethro Villagracia, 21, of Davao City; Ron Pandino, 19, of Laguna; Darwin Alagar, 20, of Pangasinan; Alduz Christian Mañosa, 18, Jefferson de la Rosa, 20, and Neil Russel Balajadia, 25, of Pasig City; and Arvie Nuñez, 21, of Lucena City.

**Walter** · February 25th, 2006 11:16 PM

This is still too weird to believe. Authorities here are really abusive. What will the authorities gain from placing the wrong people in jail?

**niky** · February 26th, 2006 01:01 AM

Instant scapegoats? Hell, they do it all the time, and the only difference this time is that they picked minors. Someone's going to get sacked.

I was skeptical before, but not now.