THEY RAPED ME

by Rehayna Jumra

as told to Najwa Lawi 

It happened on the afternoon of July 17, 2009 at around 1:30 in the afternoon. I was on my way home from school walking along the sidewalk in front of the Santanina Rasul Sports Complex when I noticed that my shoelace was untied. I stooped down to tie it. Suddenly, someone from behind me seized me, covering my eyes with a blindfold and dragging me towards a van parked on the street. I did not see my abductor’s face, but I caught that he was tall and had cropped hair. He had me deposited on the back seat behind the driver with the help of another man. They must have made me sniff something or injected me with a substance that I felt dizzy and drowsy. I counted five men in the van. I could see them from behind my blindfold. Their leader, the one they addressed as Ridzmer, had a shaved head. One had cropped hair, the tall guy I recognized as the one who dragged me, then the guy with long curly hair in ponytail who helped him put me inside the van, and the two other men who sat at the back of the van. One of these two men was dark-complexioned, while the other was fair-skinned and chinky-eyed. I also heard them call each other as “Al”, “Jul”, “Jun”, and “Midz”, including “Ridzmer”. After a while, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, I was inside a room lying down on a bed, my hands tied behind me with a rope. My mouth had been taped shut. My cell phone was no longer in my pocket. There was another bed inside the room; there were two doors. The two windows with jalousies were both closed and covered with white. I only knew that there were jalousies underneath because there was a torn portion of the white cover. One of the doors led to the bathroom, the other to the rest of the house. In a little while two women came in.

One of the women talked to me. The other did not, just laughed and cried alternately. The one who talked to me introduced herself as Sal and said that the other woman is named Meng. Sal looked about 20 years old, while Meng several years older, maybe about 25 years old. Sal was fair-complexioned, had a pointed nose, and had long straight black hair that reached down to her waist. She talked to me in Tagalog, took care of me in the next five days that I was there.

Sal told me that she and Meng are relatives of the men who took me. I could not talk because of the tape on my mouth, so she eventually took it off and tried to answer some of my questions. She said that we were somewhere in Patikul. But there was no way for me to ascertain this as I could not open the windows to look outside. I could however hear that we were in a busy place. I could hear vehicles passing and three mosques taking turns making the call for prayer each time.

Later, the men who had taken me came in. When they all got inside the room, the two women were asked to leave. It was the Ridzmer, the shaved man, who approached me first. He injected me with a substance and I immediately felt groggy and weak, the same fainting spell I felt in the van. My hands were also still tied behind me, so it was very hard for me to fight. Ridzmer took off my pants, my t-shirt, and my undergarments. He also took off the rope that tied my hands together before he took my shirt off, and then after taking the shirt off, he had me tied again. I was crying the whole time. I also had no strength to fight, not even to call out for help. After he had me stripped naked in bed, Ridzmer took off his pants and briefs. Then he forced himself inside me, making push and pull motions. I felt excruciating pain as he did this. When he finished, the four other men took their turns in doing the same. The next in line was the man with the earring, who also took off his pants and inserted his penis inside my vagina. After him was the curly-haired guy in ponytail, who did the same, and then the dark-complexioned guy. The last to rape me was the chinky-eyed guy. At each turn that one of them was raping me, the others were all inside also inside the room, watching and laughing, making comments like “Make it fast! It’s our turn now!”.

When the men finished, the two women came in. Sal appeared so surprised at seeing me bleeding profusely. She wiped the blood off from my vagina, and covered me with a blanket. She stayed beside me on the bed, while Meng slept on the other bed. It must have been nighttime already. I could not sleep. I couldn’t help but kept crying and praying.

The next day, July 18, Sal brought me milk, water, and bread. I could not bring myself to eat, so I only asked for water. She made me drink some as I could not hold the glass of water myself. My hands were still tied behind me. She insisted that I should also eat, spoon-feeding me, but I just could not bring myself to swallow anything else.

Then the man with the earring came inside the room. He was holding a bottle of Tanduay and he also insisted that I eat. I told him that they should release me and return me to where they took me. He was irritated, and told me not to give them problems. I told him that they were crazy and continued to demand to be released. He shouted invectives at me. “Bilat hi ina mu!”, your mother’s cunt, he said. I called him crazy, dopehead. “Kangug kaw! Drug addict!”. He splashed me with rhum, turned toward the door, locking it as he left the room.

At first Sal would not admit to me, but she soon said that yes, the men were all drug addicts. I asked her if she had also been kidnapped and raped by the men. She said No, but broke into tears as she said this. I asked her why was she crying and why she and Meng did not leave, but she said I was asking too many questions. She did tell me anyway that there were other girls who had been taken there by the men and were raped by the men. “Kaligayahan nila,” she said, their way to be happy. Some, they released, she said, and some they killed. She also informed me that the men were actually targeting a nursing student named Sherwina and that they even have her picture. She said that I might have been mistaken for her as I look like her.

Later that night, the men again came inside the room – Ridzmer, Jul, Jun, Midz, and Al. When it became apparent that they were to do it again, Sal begged them not to do it again. She told them I had bled too much, they ought to have some pity on me. Ridzmer got mad at her, slapped her, and ordered her out of the room. As soon as she had left, Ridzmer put a syringe into my arm again. It had the same effect as the previous ones. I felt myself getting weak and I felt dizzy. Then the men took my clothes off, and took turns raping me. Again Ridzmer was first, then after him, all the other men, one after another. All I could do was cry. I was too weak and dizzy to put up a resistance.

When they got done, the men left the room. Sal came inside. Again, I was bleeding and crying in pain. She took off the rope that tied my hands and helped me to my feet. She brought me to the bathroom and bathed me. Then she put my clothes back on and then tied me up again, apologizing that she had to do it.

Sleep was elusive, even though I was very tired. Whenever I did fall asleep, I would be awakened every few minutes. The fear that one of them would come and do something, rape me again or shoot me, kept me awake.

The next day, July 19, I saw an opportunity to escape. I was alone inside the room, and the door was open. I sneaked out of the room, passing by another door. It was a big house. I saw benches on the hall and a painting. Ridzmer was standing there and he met my gaze. He angrily asked me if I was going to escape. I did not respond. The other men heard Ridzmer and also appeared. Ridzmer told me to go back inside but I did not move. He came at me and slapped me in the face, twice, but I still did not move. He took a pistol from the back of his pants and pointed the nozzle on my head. “Are you going inside or not?!”. Then I heard an old man’s voice from outside the hall say “Don't shoot her! Take some pity!” Ridzmer raised the pistol towards the ceiling and pulled the trigger. I was shaking with fear. Then Sal came and took me inside the room. I heard the door close and locked behind us. Alone together in the room, I cried as Sal tried to comfort me. She told me I should not escape as I would be released alive, the men had told her this. She also untied my hands from behind my back but tied them up in front. While this still restricted me, it helped alleviate the pain on my arms a bit. She told me that I could not escape even if I wanted to. I would not know where to go because the house has a lot of rooms and I would be confused in finding my way out.

Later that day, the man with the earring came inside the room. He was holding a transparent plastic bag and sniffing its contents. He then lighted a white substance on a foil. When he saw me watching him, he asked, “Why are you looking? Why, do you take shabu?” I told No, and tried to ignore him. I was afraid he would try to do something to me. I was relieved when neither he nor the other men did not rape me that day.

The next day, July 20, none of the men came to the room. The door stayed locked and they made sure that I could not leave. Sal was by my side most of the time and if she needed to do something outside, she would take leave and made sure she locked the door. Then on July 21, my fifth day of capture, she told me that I would be released the next day. She said the release was supposed to be done that day but that the van would not start and had to be repaired. I still hadn’t stopped crying and couldn’t eat proper, but I was hoping that she was telling the truth.

In the morning of the next day, July 22, Sal told me that I would be released in the afternoon. She embraced and kissed me on the forehead and told me to be good, and that hopefully, we would be seeing each other in the future. She was crying as she said this. She also told me that the other women who were brought by the men there did not talk to her, and that I was the only one who did. After making me take my lunch that day, she covered my eyes with a handkerchief, apologizing that she needed to do this. A tape was also placed over my mouth. Then she told me that we were going out of the room. She guided me out and down a flight of stairs. When I felt that we were out of the house, Sal hugged me again and told me to take care of myself. I could not reply because of the tape over my mouth.

She then guided to the van, asked me to get inside and had me seated inside. I heard the voices of my captors, and I felt them going inside one by one. Then, I felt the van rev up. It went past about three humps a very short distance from each other just right after we drove off. I also heard other vehicles outside the vehicle I was riding. After a while, I felt it stop and Ridzmer took off the cover from my eyes and the tape over my mouth. I saw that there were seven men inside the van. Aside from my five captors, there were two other men, both sporting cropped hair, one with fair complexion and the other dark. I also saw that all seven men were wearing jackets. One of them told the other men, “She’s cute. Why didn't you allow us to use her as well?”

Ridzmer told me that they were letting me go. He said that my relatives had been been informed about my release and that they were going to pick me. He untied my hands and gave me back my cellphone and my bag. Then he took a pistol and covered it with a cap. The door of the van was opened, and I was told to go down. Ridzmer told me not to shout for help. I got off the van and went down the street. As soon as I was out of vehicle, I started crying again. 

 

I ran away from the van. The van started to leave. I looked back and caught a part of its plate number. It had the letters “JL” as the first two but I wasn't able to remember the third letter. I also saw the last two numbers as 87. I cannot remember the first number. I saw that I was dropped off in front of JKA Marketing along Serrantes Street of downtown Jolo. I also saw an Aunt on board a tricycle, and she was looking around, as if looking for someone. The tricycle was moving away, and I ran after it, still crying. A male vendor I ran into asked me why I was crying, but I ignored him, just continued running after the tricycle, calling out my aunt’s name. The tricycle finally stopped and waited for me, my aunt waving and hurrying me to get aboard. As soon as I got seated she told the driver to get us home fast. Soon we were both standing on the street near home and the tricycle left. I and my aunt walked home.

Upon arriving home, I was met by my family and we were all crying and hugging each other. Later that evening, I told my mother what happened to me. We did not know what to do, we did not even have money to see a doctor. My mother just had enough to buy pain relievers for what I felt in my vagina. We were also too scared to do anything, scared of what would happen to us if we did not go to the police to report the incident, and scared of what would happen if we did. Finally, with the advice and help of friends, I went to the Sulu Provincial Hospital and had myself examined by the doctor. I was issued a medical certificate that said “multiple lacerations”. We also went to the Office of Mayor Amin. During one of the meetings with the Mayor, some men were presented to me, and I was asked to identify who among them had abducted me and raped me. I was able to identify one of the accused, Rusman Ammar, who turned out to be the son of a Punong Barangay of Tiptipun in the municipality of Panglima Estino. 
 

He was the curly-haired man in ponytail.

A gallant knight in camouflage?

An old woman, Babu Insih, of Lampaki, Indanan related this to Lunsad:

One day as she was going about her housechores, a military officer knocked at her door. As always, she expected bad news. She mustered all her courage to deal with the officer: either they want information on Abu Sayyaf or they want a pot of rice and some chicken meat. He greeted her very respectfully and asked politely if he and his men may use the school nearby as sleeping quarters. She was so surprised. It’s SOP in the village for military men to just break the door or hack through the wall of school buildings then set camp inside classrooms. The plywood ceiling would normally be ripped so that the Army men could tie the end ropes of their cradles onto the beams. She told the Army officer, he and his men may, if they please.

The next day she was even more surprised. When she passed by the school building, there was no telltale signs of military occupation around the spoken-for vicinity, no litter of garbage, not even a bent grass around the classrooms. And so she went to where the Army officer and his men set tents. 

You didn’t use the classrooms? she asked him in her scanty Tagalog.

“Hindi po naman umulan kagabi, Babu.” (But it didn’t rain last night, Grandmother.)

Unu in pikil niyu mga budjang, shall we reward this gallant officer with a Crush ng Bayan Award?

One Day at the Rally (Or who says children do not understand anything?)

I was in my car, my eldest son seated to my right at the front seat, quiet like he always was. The younger boys, nine and ten, were watching excitedly at the back seat behind us. Yehey! Rally! the younger boy exclaimed. He had wanted to join; he always liked parades and marches. I only wanted them to see. The issue at hand was far too important for me to keep to myself. 

Bang biya iyan in taud sin mga tawu bukun rali iyan, the ten-year old chided. People power iyan.” If people were as thick as that you don’t call that rally, that’s people power.

UP IN ARMS AGAINST RAPE

by Baira Julkipli

On the first day, August 26, 2009, Wednesday, they massed on the grounds of the Sulu State College. On the following day, August 27, Thursday, at the Notre Dame of Jolo; and on the third and last day, August 28, Friday, they gathered at the Southern Mindanao Islamic Institute. School has been suspended to give way to this huge gathering. Hundreds stood under the mid-day sun: students, teachers and administrators from all the colleges. Priests and nuns from Catholic schools, NGO activists, workaday people, vendors and tricycle drivers were also there.

On the SSC grounds, the air was tense. There was anger, indignation. There was also exhilaration, the feeling of strength in number; of courage multiplied, and just maybe, the hint of the yearned-for freedom. Every decent citizen seemed to be there, young and old, professionals, human rights activists, the religious. A great number was mostly women, and mostly young, in school-uniform and properly veiled. All around, placards and streamers screamed for justice. Girls balled their fists into the air, shouting Allahu Akbar. 

The object of the protest is the series of abduction and gang rape victimizing young women, some of whom students from the town’s colleges. There had been at least 20 cases documented and it would seem there had been more undocumented ones. A news reporter from the Philippine Daily Inquirer reached the Governor and asked for a statement about the uncovered crimes, and she was bluntly put out. The Governor told her not to bother him as he is busy with so many other things to be talking about rape. On the ground, however, everyone was up in arms. Even the Catholic sector, a traditionally timid segment and silent spectator in the islands’ gold-and-goons politics, was finally incensed. One victim is rumoured to have lost her mind; others who had spoken up later hid or ran away, some reportedly paid off to disappear from the town. A gay friend of one of the student victims who witnessed the abduction had been later hunted down and stabbed to death. His body was later found in Dan Puti in Patikul. 

A day before the series of mass actions, an announcement had been made over the local radio. No classes from Wednesday through Friday, August 26^th to 28^th; everyone is enjoined to take part in the series of demonstrations and indignation rallies in the campuses and around downtown Jolo. The colleges were shaken: it is their students that are being raped, sometimes right outside the school gate. The streamers and placards cry: Justice for rape victims! Jail the rapists! Days back, the president of Sulu State College, Dr Hamsali Jawali, aghast over the events that have been taking place in his hometown, went up to the second floor of the SSC Hostel to join the meeting of the Women Support Group, an ad hoc body set up to address the rape issue. He had to be carried up the stair in his wheelchair as he has been half-paralyzed from a stroke. At the meeting he broke down. He never thought he would see this day, he said, when his cherished homeland, Lupah Sug, should come to this. 

Earlier, during an end-of-Ramadhan lecture, the grand mufti of the Province of Sulu had wrongly spoken, denying the rape cases as hearsay. His statement was broadcasted internationally via TN, a Tausug website. The local people got so furious that criticisms flew his way. A Tausug girl strongly reacted and commented, Subay san tilu’un sin batu in mufti yan, that mufti ought to be stoned.

Most outraged were the women. Bansag Babae, Muslimah Resource for Integrated Development, and the MNLF’s Bangsa Moro Women Organization, in league with Bawgbug, a human rights alliance, had over the last few months uncovered a series of VAW cases dating back to several years back. On June 12, 2008, a girl was abducted by two men on a motorcycle while walking down a road juncture called Crossing. She was able to escape when the motorcycle stopped somewhere in Dan Puti. In July of 2009, a student of Sulu State College was again taken by van-riding men and was held captive for five days in a big house where she was gang-raped for two days. She was released. (See related story on p. 2.)

Then on the second week of August 2009, another 12-year old girl was taken by van-riding men and was also raped for days by several men; and again, on August 19, 2009, a 19-year old woman was abducted by a group of men in a van. This too was able to escape. Another report points to another uninvestigated case, the daughter of a teacher at Bakud Elementary School abducted in Mawbuh and was brought somewhere in Tanjung, where she was raped by several men. The Tanjung area in Indanan is a turf of the Estino clan, a close ally of Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan. This girl and her family had to later leave their residence at the PC compound in Asturias, Jolo. Her father had tried to contact Bawgbug and the girl’s abductors had somehow got wind of it and paid them a visit. They left before she could testify or make a report. The teacher-mother had to seek a transfer elsewhere. 

Filing a complaint for rape is high-risk in Jolo. In one case where the victim was able to make a report to human rights groups, she stirred a hornet’s nest, with the town’s warlords put on the defensive. An “invitation” for an affidavit signing at the Mayor’s office turned into a confrontation between her and prominent politician families backed by a hundred Civilian Emergency Forces (private armies turned auxiliary forces of the police and the military). Hadji Kadil Estino was notably present, along with Hadja Aminah Buclao and her who husband Provincial Board Member Hector Buclao. The hadja would be thenceforth to be famously remembered as the lady who threatened the rape victim with an on-the-spot clitoridectomy for daring to complain. She had allegedly took out a pistol from her bag and brandished it against the victim and the human rights activist who sought to defend the girl from her verbal assaults. “Larutun ku san in tutuy mu yan. (I will have your clitoris removed.),” Hadja Aminah was heard to have said.

The rape issue has polarized the Tausug community, especially the religious under whose leadership all of the Moro Muslims traditionally sought guidance. Sadly, as the religious leaders and teachers argued and bickered as to how to confront the disgraceful news, new cases kept on turning up. On the last week of August 2009, a 22-year old married woman was found dead in the outskirt of Sahaya Village in Latih, Patikul. Unconfirmed accounts said that her body was thrown there in the bush by two unidentified motor-riding men. On September 4, 2009, another report to the Justice and Peace for Integrity of Creation (JPIC) states, an 72-year old woman was also gang-raped by ten men in Tulay, Jolo. Then a day later, on September 5, 2009, a decomposing body was found, again in Tanjung, Indanan. The body was identified later to be that of a lost girl from Igasan, Patikul. Then again, on September 9, 2009, a 17-year old girl was also found by a policeman in the jambatan (docking area). The young girl was in a state of shock and her body bore rape and torture marks. It was found out that she was gang-raped by four men.

All of these cases were part of sketchy reports filed in the desks and offices of DSWD-Women’s Desk, the PNP, the PHO, the Medico-Legal department of the Provincial Hospital, and NGO offices in Sulu. Human rights organizations and the Women Support Group, a coalition around the VAW issue, had repeatedly called for a national investigation into the cases, but none has so far been taken. Complaints against military abuses to the Commission on Human Rights in Region 9 earlier filed have yielded no results as the Office has no power to prosecute. As a matter of procedure the CHR would write the AFP about the lodged complaints, the latter would deny the charges, then CHR would inform the complaining party of the military’s response, and no further action would be taken. In the case of rape cases where perpetrators were identified to be politicians’ sons and members of local warlords’ militias, resistance to the pursuit of justice primarily comes from local officials. In the outrage against the gang rapes in the islands, the Governor, the Town Mayor, the Provincial National Police were one in their response: outright denial. The religious leaders, now beholden to politicians because their monthly subsidy, including the Central Mosque’s and the madaris’ light and water, are paid for by the Governor, have had to feign ignorance as well, echoing the official line that reports of rape is hearsay and that human rights reporting is bad for the image of Sulu. Such non-cooperation from authorities in the province has made life difficult for human rights defenders. Threats have become frequent callers. Motorcycle-riding men would follow them or their closest of kin, and “mysterious” men in civilian clothes would be espying around their offices inquiring into their whereabouts. An” exemplary” case of harassment was that of Temogen “Cocoy” Tulawie who, for spearheading a series of human rights campaigns and mass actions, had been charged with multiple attempted murder cases by the Governor and had been issued by the regional court of Jolo an arrest order. The staunch human rights activist had to flee the town and is now in hiding. 

Since the last quarter of 2009 when huge throngs of people made a stand against the rape of women in the islands, no other massive protest action has been staged. The heavy hand of the fascist machinery seems to have reasserted itself, cowing people into submission. Some of the civil society organizations, half of the once critical Tausug intellectuals, and the better-fed part of the ulama, are now one by one making a turnaround, falling into silence or else issuing statements that absolve the crimes and abuses of those in offices. Nowadays, not many seem to have remembered the words of Fr. Jose Ante of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate: “We had been the quietest sector,” he had told the indignant crowd massed before him on August 17, 2009, “but this is an issue we cannot be silent about. We must unite and gather our strength around this and speak up!”

And yet, that someone, one of the victims, spoke up is maybe already a great source of hope. It is now up for the rest of the women victims to turn up and speak, carry on with the fight.

Baira Julkipli is the pseudonym of a Tausug writer now based in Manila. Baira spent some college in Mindanao State University in Marawi City, finished a course in Manila, then wrote and did some photography for a newspaper in Dubai.

Snapshots from Jolo

Waktu na ingaton bang hisiyu kita. (It's time to decide who we are.)

Over these recent years, we have been witness to a gruesome event unprecedented in the history of Sulu: the rape of our women by our own men. In the last five years alone, 25 cases have been recorded in sketchy reports, and perhaps, if we were brave enough to know more, we would have learned of more painful truths. For now we only know that there must be scores of other undocumented cases. The last victim who spoke up, a 17-year old college student, told us that in the house where she was taken to be gang-raped, two other servant girls were kept who told her that her rapists had taken many other girls there, some of whom they shot and dumped dead. In another report, the victim was a 72-year old woman with four teenagers as perpetrators, and in another case, a 12-year old girl.

In our hearts we feel that this is an evil visitation, work of saitan, and we ask ourselves: How could this happen to our beloved homeland? What has become of us that our men could go this low? And what does it say of us, women, that such profanity could be done to us? Finally, what does it say of our government, our local officials and trusted protectors, that they could allow their own sons and brothers to get away from doing this ugly thing to us without penalty? If we let this injustice happen without a fight, what does it say of us as a people?

But as though this were not enough, just very recently, the military and the US forces once again swooped down on us. On December 07, 2010, at two o’ clock in the morning, the Special Action Forces of the PNP, in a joint dragnet operation with US soldiers, woke the entire barangay of Upper Sampunay in Parang, Sulu and dragged each one, young and old, out of their houses and made them kneel and lie face down under the barrels of their guns as they handcuffed each one, man and woman, and didn’t let them stand until nine o’ clock, when they had 37 people taken to a police camp. We know that this kind of military abuse go on in the interior barangays, whether there is an official war declaration against Muslim insurgents in the islands or none, and each time this thing happens, the anger in our bellies grows. We only feel sad that these acts are continually sanctioned by those tasked to govern and look after us. 

Another bad news we have to deal with has to do with the oil drillings in our sea, a presage to a more systematic rape of the last of our riches. No less than Exxon Mobil of the world’s most powerful country has sealed a new deal with our leaders. In the offing is a projected yield of 750 million barrels of oil, envisioned by the project’s apologists as the ultimate bringer of progress to the poor islands. Images of wealthy Arabs are now being conjured and peddled even by enlightened Tausug intellectuals, forgetting, it seems, that the US had always been enemy state to the Bangsamoro people until very recently when, guided by our local rulers, US troops started building mosques and madrasahs in the wake of a USAID-led conflict transformation project.

What we must remember is that these same leaders who now want us to give up the last of our sovereign rights to our land are the same collaborators who let big foreign vessels comb our shores of fish and allowed our fishermen to starve; the very same traitors who welcomed fascist forces to decimate the bravest of our mujahideen, burn villages, loot houses, abduct, and kill civilians; the same greedy politicians who abandoned our youth to narcotics and lives of self-destruction just to have a share of the devil’s money. 

All this and more, our brothers and sisters, confront us. 

In the old days when knights in shining armours took up their weapons that they may protect their kings, women who did not wield the sword, died by the sword. In the countless wars against the Philippine state that our men fought, we Bangsamoro women have always stood by our men. But nowadays when our oppressors are many, some of them right here in our land, it now seems that our collective courage is not enough to guard us from our guardians.

Sisters and fellow believers in the faith, we need not take up the sword this time. We are stronger than that. But we need to know and decide who we are before we can unbind the rope of fears and confusion that ties us. The struggle for justice is a long rough road, and we have only each other to hold on to. 

Let’s step forward and be counted!