COURT of Appeals magistrates yesterday grilled Fil-American activist Melissa Roxas on the circumstances surrounding her alleged abduction and torture by military personnel in Tarlac last May.

Roxas, a member of the militant group Bayan-USA, said she and two other Bayan members identified as Juanito Carabeo and John Erwin Jandoc were forcibly taken in La Paz, Tarlac last May 19 and detained for six days by military personnel from the Philippine Army’s 7th Infantry Division based in Fort Magsaysay.

Roxas claimed she was in Tarlac as a volunteer health worker, as well as to work on her novel.

She was accompanied by her lawyer and members of militant groups when she finally showed up in court yesterday after filing her petition for the writ of amparo last June 3.

Roxas’ lawyer Rex Fernandez asked the CA’s Special 16th Division to suppress the videotape presented by party-list Reps. Jovito Palparan (Bantay) and Pastor Alcover (Anad) before the Commission on Human Rights early this week.

Palparan, nicknamed "the Butcher" by his critics, was a former Army commander of the 7th ID who has been linked to a number of forced disappearances of several individuals believed to be members of militant groups or the NPA.

The video purportedly showed Roxas holding an M16 rifle while training with the New People’s Army in Aurora. Roxas has denied that she was the woman in the videotape.

Fernandez said the videotape should not be part of the records of the court or any other body investigating Roxas’ alleged abduction and torture as it violates her right to privacy.

This rationale, however, was lost on CA magistrates who claimed that Roxas’ privacy could not have been violated if she insisted that it was not her on the videotape.

Assistant solicitor general Amparo Cabotaje-Tang said the petition should be dismissed as Roxas failed to cite specific acts supposedly committed by respondents that threatened her right to life, security and liberty.

The OSG’s stance prompted the CA to question Roxas as to the depth of her involvement with Bayan.

Associate Justice Noel Tijam asked Roxas if in the course of her dealings with other Bayan members in the country, she formed any bias against the military, and if this exposure influenced her to reach the conclusion that it was the military that perpetrated her abduction.

Tijam also wanted to know if Roxas was sympathetic to the NPA. Roxas hedged so Tijam rephrased his question and asked if she was averse to the military. When Roxas failed to reply, Tijam said: "I wouldn’t take it against you if you are sympathetic to the NPA." He informed her that under Philippine laws, being a member of an organization like the NPA is not a crime unless she commits criminal acts.

At the House, Gabriela party-list Rep. Liza Maza called Palparan and Alcover rabid dogs for their anti-communist campaign. She said the two were installed in Congress to persecute members of "legitimate" organizations.

"The monstrous obsession of the Butcher and his evil twin against the progressive bloc is just hysterically pathetic," she said.

Palaparan and Alcover are both openly accusing leftist party list organizations such as Maza’s of being fronts of the CPP-NPA-NDF.

Maza said it was a "pity" that the two congressmen’s "only reason for being is to vilify and malign leaders and members of legitimate organizations and progressive party-lists.