By Ka Efren
Spokesperson, NDFP in Far South Mindanao
It is with the gravest, most urgent concern that we write to you for and in behalf of our missing comrade, Felix Capalla (Ka Tawi) who we believe has been abducted on the 13th of June, between five and seven p.m. while on board a Holiday Bus bound for Davao City. He was on sick leave and went to General Santos for a medical check up.
Reliable reports have reached us that Ka Tawi was forcibly taken by military intelligence operatives and is being held incommunicado somewhere in Malungon, Sarangani Province. We can only surmise what he is going through right now. We know for a fact that missing persons in the Philippines and in GenSan in particular, if not immediately found, suffer the very grave danger of missing forever. His forced disappearance, now running to more than 72 hours, has caused unnamable concern and worry for all of us — comrades and masses who love him dearly.
As the closest kins of Ka Tawi, we implore you to please do everything possible to follow up this kind-hearted revolutionary who has worked for the cause of the Filipino people and has spent the greater part of his life serving the peasant masses. As a human being, he has his right to be surfaced, treated humanely, and tried in court with a counsel of his own. While Ka Tawi has consistently abided with the protocols of war, particularly the international humanitarian law on the humane treatment of captives, we expect that his captors will do likewise. All civilized states abide with these laws in their rules of engagement. Most of all, Ka Tawi was taken while he was unarmed and on sick leave; his defenseless status underscores the need to accord him his civil rights.
As of now, time is of the essence. Your prompt and timely act of following him up with the authorities — whether in the various military camps, prison cells, police precincts or safehouses could save his life.
For the NDFP in Far South Mindanao Region,
Ka Efren, Spokesperson
