📷: Karapatan | FB
The Taguig City Regional Trial Court Branch 266 acquitted two peace consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and three others of charges of kidnapping with murder and frustrated murder.
The court ordered the release of Renante Gamara and Tirso Alcantara, along with peasant organizer Dionisio Almonte and construction workers Diony Borre and Raul Razo.
Gamara, Borre, and Razo were released from Metro Manila District Jail Annex 4 last night, August 14, 2025, in Taguig City. Meanwhile, Almonte remains detained at the New Bilibid Prisons, according to human rights group Karapatan.
Alcantara was tried in absentia, and his whereabouts remain unknown. He went into hiding after the Duterte administration canceled formal peace negotiations in 2017.
The five were implicated along with 32 other respondents in a case involving the kidnapping and killing of a soldier and the attempted killing of a “rebel returnee” in Mauban, Quezon in May 2007.
Karapatan stated that the basis for including their names in the arrest warrant was “fabricated.”
Gamara, who was arrested in March 2012 based on a warrant issued as far back as May 2011, had his name added only 11 days before his arrest.
The military claimed he was the “Ka Mike” referred to in the warrant, Karapatan revealed.
But Gamara insisted he had never set foot in Mauban and was in Manila campaigning for Bayan Muna when the incident occurred.
He was granted bail in 2016 to participate as a consultant in the formal peace talks between the NDFP and the Philippine government.
He was rearrested in March 2019 after allegedly being planted with fabricated evidence of firearms and explosives at his residence, Karapatan said.
Civilian Borre was included in the charges for being the son-in-law of the late Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, former spokesperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Like Gamara, he asserted that he had never been to Mauban, Quezon.
Almonte was working at a bakery, while Razo was at a construction site at the time of the incident.
“Public prosecutors have this insidious practice of amending arrest orders by adding the names of targeted individuals, baselessly claiming that the aliases in the warrant refer to them. The trumped-up charges were also based on the perjured testimonies of a so-called rebel surrenderee named Erwin Rosales, whose claims were deemed hearsay by the court, and the prosecutors’ failed attempt to establish their involvement in the alleged crime,” said Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay.
“We are glad that the court saw through the lies and inconsistencies in the prosecution witnesses’ testimonies,” Palabay added, “and we commend the defense lawyers for their efforts in uncovering the truth and securing the freedom of those wrongfully accused and unjustly detained for so long.” | via KODAO PRODUCTIONS
