The AFP, a habitual violator of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), has committed another heinous war crime. This time shooting and abducting a pregnant Red fighter on medical leave.
According to the National Democratic Front-Far South Mindanao Region (NDF-FSMR) spokesperson Kim Montiza, New People’s Army (NPA) member Arnida Cuaton Maguiguilid took medical leave from her unit in August and was staying with friends in a boarding house in Tagum City. On September 19, she was returning to her boarding house when military agents shot her and left her bleeding on the ground. A housemate rushed her to a hospital. The bullet struck her spinal column leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. The status of her unborn child remains uncertain.
State forces seized her at the hospital, and was brought to another hospital in Koronadal City in South Cotabato. The 603rd IBde and 6th ID later claimed she “surrendered” on September 24 with the fabricated story that NPA Red fighters shot her.
“The butcher Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) fabricated this story to cover up their human rights violation against Arnida, who has special protection as a woman and a pregnant person under international humanitarian law,” stressed NDF-FSMR spokesperson Kim Montiza who also said that the military's claim that Maguiguilid “surrendered” is a dirty tactic of the fascist AFP to outrightly deny her legal rights.
Citing the United Nations General Assembly’s Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict on December 14, 1974, the NDF-FSMR stated: “All forms of repression and cruel and inhuman treatment of women and children, including imprisonment, torture, shooting, mass arrests, collective punishment, destruction of dwellings and forcible eviction, committed by belligerents in the course of military operations or in occupied territories shall be considered criminal (Article 5).”
Furthermore, this dirty war tactic also blatantly violates the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) signed by representatives of the Government of the Philippines and the NDFP on March 16, 1998 in The Hague, The Netherlands, and subsequently ratified by their respective principals.
It says that: “Persons hors de combat and those who do not take a direct part in hostilities are entitled to respect for their lives, dignity, human rights, political convictions and their moral and physical integrity and shall be protected in all circumstances and treated humanely without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, faith, sex, birth, social standing or any other similar criteria.” (Part 4, Respect for International Humanitarian Law, Article 4, Number 1)
Montiza stressed that Maguiguilid’s case highlights the dirty counterrevolutionary war of the AFP, CAFGU, and the Philippine National Police in the region where the constant victims are the basic masses of farmers, settlers, Moro, and others.