Suspect in Abra mayor’s killing cries torture

BANGUED, Abra — A suspect in the killing of Tineg, Abra Mayor Clarence Benwaren has alleged that he suffered a 10-day ordeal in the hands of Cordillera policemen in Baguio safehouses to force him to admit to the murder.

Felipe Belisario, 51, alleged that the policemen, who manhandled him, forced him to implicate two controversial political figures as brains of the assassination.

Three weeks ago, the Cordillera police vowed to solve the controversial killing by the end of this year but kept from journalists the arrest of a suspect, which turned out to be Belisario.

Police said the arrested suspect matched one of the cartographic sketches of Benwaren’s assassins.

In a letter of complaint to Human Rights Commissioner Aurora Reciña, a copy of which was obtained by The STAR, Belisario narrated how he was arrested last Dec. 2 in Sampaloc, Manila by 10 Cordillera policemen, led by Senior Inspector Reynaldo Celestino, allegedly without a valid warrant of arrest.

"The policemen headed by Celestino just picked me up at gunpoint and in full view of my three daughters," Belisario said in his complaint notarized by lawyer Elpidio Siagan.

He said he was handcuffed and kicked inside a white Mitsubishi L-300 van with license plate SEG 158 which sped to Baguio City.

The arrest was entered in the blotter of the Sampaloc police. The blotter reportedly noted that 10 members of the Regional Intelligence and Investigation Group (RIIG) of the Cordillera police were behind Belisario’s arrest.

Belisario alleged that he was blindfolded on the way to Baguio, and was later shoved out of the vehicle, hit and kicked on different parts of the body.

He further claimed that he endured severe beatings to force him to admit to Benwaren’s murder and implicate now Tineg Mayor Edwin Crisologo and Abra Gov. Vicente Valera.

He said he was transferred from one safehouse to another and allegedly made to suffer inhuman torture reminiscent of the martial law years, including water torture, electrocution and Russian roulette.

The 10-day ordeal, he said, only ended when his relatives filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Abra court, after which he was turned over by Celestino on Dec. 12.

A medico-legal certificate issued by physician Rolex Gonzales, medical officer of the Abra Provincial Hospital, stated that Belisario had hematoma on his soles, lacerations, wounds on his lower lip, right biceps, left buttocks, upper chest and wrists, and multiple abrasions on his right leg, among other alleged signs of physical maltreatment.

Following his release, Belisario was confined for three days at the Abra Provincial Hospital before he was finally committed to the Abra provincial jail.

The victim admitted to Reciña that he was also implicated in the 1993 killing of one Dante Valera and had been eluding arrest for nine years, but he denied being involved in the Benwaren slay.

Benwaren was gunned down during a wedding last Oct. 29 inside the Calauan, Laguna church.