Dear friends:

The Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND), a nationwide human rights NGO concerned with the issue of enforced disappearances in the Philippines, would like to request your urgent intervention in the case of two victims of enforced disappearance, Nicolas Sanchez, 27 years old, married, with one child; and Heherson Medina, 29, single.  Nicolas and Heherson are cousins belonging to the Aeta tribe, one of the indigenous groups in Northern Philippines, and are both farmers and residents of Sitio Dalin, Barangay Bueno and Barangay O’Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, respectively.

The two were reported missing since September 18, 2006 in Sitio Cabatuan, Barangay Bueno, Capas, Tarlac, where they were, according to relatives and witnesses, forcibly taken by about 30 armed men in camouflage uniforms believed to be soldiers belonging to the 71st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IB, PA). The cousins were catching edible frogs for their respective families’ meal between one o’clock and two o‘clock in the morning when the incident happened.

The abductors allegedly took Nicolas and Heherson to a truck which witnesses identified as the same truck they had seen at the compound of the 71st IB, PA in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City.

Earlier efforts to locate them had been futile.  Recently however, a witness has come forward giving hope to the victims’ respective families to locate the whereabouts of the two.  The said witness claimed having personally seen the two on September 21, 2006 on board a military truck at the gate of the Northern Luzon Command at Camp Servillano Aquino, San, Miguel, Tarlac City.  The witness claimed further having seen them again on 24 September and 1 November at the camp of the Bravo Company of the 71st IB, PA located at the Aqua Farm inside the Hacienda Luisita in Barangay Cut-Cut II, Tarlac City.

In response to the request made by the families of both Nicolas Sanchez and Heherson Medina, a search mission was organized by FIND and the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, Region III Office.  However, authorities of the aforementioned camps denied having custody of the two.  This, despite signed affidavits by relatives and witnesses and the positive identification by the latest witness of a certain 2Lt. Ali Sumangil as the Bravo Company Commander of the 71st IB, PA and T/Sgt. Gil Q. Villalobos, both of whom allegedly have personal knowledge of the whereabouts of Nicolas and Heherson.  According to reliable sources, the witness has been under threat by the military for implicating them as perpetrators.

The families of Nicolas Sanchez and Heherson Medina appeal to your humanitarian heart to kindly help facilitate the immediate and unconditional release of the two.  Their absence from their respective families since September 18, 2006 has caused so much anxiety, ill health and economic dislocation.

Please write letters to the following, appealing for their immediate and unconditional release: