Case: Enforced Disappearance

Victim: Abner L. Hizarsa

~ 55 years old, store owner

~ resident of Camachile village, Subic town, Zambales province former political detainee, member of SELDA (Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya)

Place of Incident: At the National Highway near the Ilwas Elementary School, at Ilwas village, Subic

Date of Incident: 22 March 2007, around noon

Alleged Perpetrators: Armed men suspected to be military elements

Account of Incident

According to Abner's wife Cris dela Cruz-Hizarsa, on March 22, her husband was driving his tri-bike to Ilwas Elementary School to bring lunch to his daughter, a grade 5 pupil in the school. A witness said he noticed four men smoking inside a van parked in an alley near the national highway. When Abner passed on his tri-bike, two of the men alit, one served as a look out while the other approached Abner, put his arms around Abner's shoulders and pointed a gun to his side. Abner got off the tri-bike and went to the van with the two men. The van then sped northwards towards the direction of Castillejos town.

Mrs. Hizarsa said that her husband was a student activist during Martial Law and was arrested and detained several times. He was released in 1992, and became a member of SELDA, the organization of former political detainees which looks after the rights and welfare of political detainees and their families, and advocates amnesty and freedom for political prisoners.

According to Mrs. Hizarsa, soldiers of the 24th Infantry Battalion under the 7th Infantry Division of the Phil. Army were deployed in Subic a few weeks before Abner's abduction. The soldiers set up camp in brgy. Camachile on March 20. The soldiers had been going from house to house, conducting a census. At a village meeting on March 26, soldiers told the villagers about the presence of members of the New People's Army in the area, and threatened them not to vote for the progressive party-list groups Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela.

Mrs. Hizarsa also learned from neighbors that the week before the abduction, a white van with the last numbers 922 had been parking near the Hizarsa's store, in the early morning when Abner comes to open their store. The neighbors did not give attention to the van, thinking that it was police surveillance for an anti-drug operation.

A witness told Mrs. Hizarsa's mother that some two weeks before the abduction, she saw Abner on his tri-bike entangled in traffic at the highway, while a man in white shirt in a white van took pictures of him with a small camera.

Mrs. Hizarsa said the PNP informed her that Abner was included in a warrant of arrest for six men on charges of “frustrated murder with direct assault upon an agent or a person in authority.” The warrant was issued May 31, 2000 by Judge Benjamin Vianzon of a Bataan Regional Trial Court.

Mrs. Hizarsa said she did not know anything about a warrant for Abner's arrest.

The actual names in the warrant were: Antonio Calina aka Emil, Romeo Boy Lagidao aka Jon-Jon, Jose Victor Serrano aka Paeng, Abner Isarza aka Choy, Joven Cunanan aka Jack and Emmanuel Cordeo aka Choleng.

Abner is still missing.