THE Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) has lambasted the Philippine National Police and the military for the arrest of one of its red-tagged members and in an indignation rally in Manila, yesterday called for his immediate release.
IFI Supreme Bishop Rhee Timbang deplored the arrest of Aldeem Yañez in his house in Barangay Iponan, Cagayan de Oro City last Sunday on trumped-up charges as another attempt to link his church and members to the ongoing communist rebellion in the country.
Timbang said Yañez is a good-standing IFI member who served as a volunteer to the IFI Visayas-Mindanao Regional Office for Development and the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, a network that seeks the resumption of the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front.
“His arrest resembles the established pattern in apprehending church people active in their social advocacy and followed after being red-tagged,” Timbang said.
Timbang called for the immediate release of Yañez who is presently detained at the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Office in Camp Evangelista, Barangay Patag here awaiting court inquest.
PNP-10 spokesperson Lt. Col. Michelle Olaivar said police raiders found a Colt caliber .45 pistol and a grenade from the house of Yañez in an urban poor village in Barangay Iponan here last Sunday.
Olaivar said the police also found two rifle grenades and subversive documents.
Olaivar said the search was conducted on the strength of a search warrant issued by Judge Arthur Abundiente of the Regional Trial Court branch 25 in Cagayan de Oro on April 6.
She said police are preparing a criminal case against Yañez for violation of the Republic Act. 10591 otherwise known as “The Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act,” a bailable offense.
Yañez was also arrested in 2018 after the police in General Santos City tagged him and 12 other human rights workers and leaders of progressive groups as members of the New Peoples Army (NPA).
A local court later released Yanez or ‘the Gensan 13’ as they were called, dismissing the frustrated murder and murder cases filed against them.
Yañez and 17 other activists were arrested again and brought to Sibagat town in Agusan del Sur in 2020. They were among the 555 persons charged with the alleged involvement in an NPA attack on a Cafgu patrol base in Sibagat town on December 19, 2018.
Judge Fernando Fudalan of the Bayugan City Regional Trial Court later quashed the arrest warrants against Yañez and 533 other activists.
Rev. Christopher Ablon, IFI National Program Coordinator, said a daily indignation rally has been staged at 5:30 pm at the IFI National Cathedral along Taft Avenue in Manila.
Ablon said a daily noise barrage would also be conducted following the evening prayers at the cathedral.
