Counsels for the detained National Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultant Wilma Austria-Tiamzon manifested in court last February 19 to allow Austria to undergo a follow-up medical checkup and treatment earlier scheduled on March 16, 2016 but has remained pending at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 216 since it was filed on February 16, 2016.
Counsels for the detained National Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultant Wilma Austria-Tiamzon manifested in court last February 19 to allow Austria to undergo a follow-up medical checkup and treatment earlier scheduled on March 16, 2016 but has remained pending at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 216 since it was filed on February 16, 2016.
Austria-Tiamzon was diagnosed with “Vertebral Artery Syndrome.” She had her medical evaluation last July 15, 2015 under the care of Dr. Fernando A. Melendres. On January 9, 2016 Dr. Melendres recommended that Austria should undergo a follow-up medical checkup and evaluation at the National Kidney Transplant Institute, preferably on March 16, 2016 or any date shortly prior or after March 16. Austria-Tiamzon was last admitted to NKTI in October 2014.
The counsels are still waiting for the court’s decision.
At the same hearing, on February 19, Lt. Abraham Casis also took the witness stand in connection with the 28-year-old kidnapping case against Austria-Tiamzon and Benito Tiamzon.
Casis was purportedly among those kidnapped by the New People’s Army in 1988. Casis said she met Austria and Tiamzon in the forested area in Quezon province at, what he called as, the “Molave detention center”, where they were held by members of the NPA. Casis claimed he knew of Wilma Austria and Benito Tiamzon when photos of the couple were shown to them after their release.
Counsels for the Tiamzon couple posted a continuing objection when the prosecution asked Casis to identify in court the persons he allegedly met at the so-called Molave detention center, but Casis requested he be furnished a copy of his affidavit because he can no longer recall the names of his “NPA captors”.
Atty. Rachel Pastores of the Public Interest Law Center manifested in court that the prosecution cannot ask the witness to simply point a finger on the Tiamzon couple because their faces were all over the news after their arrest and they were the only detainees/accused present in court.
Karapatan believes that “Casis’s testimony is tainted with inconsistencies considering that the incident happened 27 years ago. The line of prosecution’s questioning is obviously to pin the Tiamzons without any sufficient basis and credible witnesses. This is just similar to the other cases filed against the Tiamzons that were allegedly committed more than two decades ago. The witnesses are more likely unable to remember everything that has happened during the incident. In the same manner that the evidence against them is possibly tampered or merely procured.”