Group slams arrest of 43 suspected rebel trainees in Rizal

A militant group on Sunday sought the release of the 43 health workers arrested in Morong, Rizal last Saturday for supposedly being members of the New People’s Army (NPA). “Up to last night, they have not been allowed to see [lawyers], doctors or family members…This again is a denial of the rights of the detained, a clear violation of our laws," the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said in a statement. The health workers are detained in Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal. Last Saturday, a combined team of police and members of the Army’s 16th Infantry Battalion nabbed 17 men and 26 women believed to be conducting an explosive training at the house of a certain Dr. Melecia Velmonte in the village of Maybangcal, Morong. (See: AFP: 43 nabbed in doc’s home are ‘rebel trainees’) But Velmonte and the Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) claimed the men and women were community health workers and doctors attending a health skill training organized by the Council for Health Development (CHD) at Velmonte’s residence. Bayan quoted Velmonte as saying that the explosives had been planted by the military and police. “This mass arrest of health professionals and health workers is unprecedented and is reminiscent of the Martial Law tactics of the Marcos dictatorship," Bayan said. The government’s so-called counter-insurgency program, it added, had made everyone open targets for repression. — Sophia Regina Dedace/NPA, GMANews.TV