Manny Pacquiao • ‘pak-ee-ow’
1. A world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao from the Philippines
2. A torture technique named after the boxer and used by Filipino police officers. It involves punching the detainee non-stop for 20 seconds.
As boxing fans prepare for the ‘fight of the century’ this weekend, some will be a little too familiar with the betting odds on Filipino hero Manny Pacquiao.
Loretta Rosales uncovered horrific proof of a particularly brutal police practice— not only to gain ‘information’, but for their own entertainment— in the form of the ‘wheel of torture’.
A story of modern torture
Being a human rights activist in the Philippines in the 1970s was a risky business.
Blindfolded and shunted into a strange car — Loretta Rosales didn’t think she would live to tell the story when two plain clothes security officials took her.
‘I was very afraid. I knew that was it for me. The moment they brought me inside this building, I started hearing cries and screams,’ Loretta told us.
‘I knew I was in a torture chamber. One of the agents said: “Nobody knows you are here so we can do anything we want with you.”’
It began right away
First, the men shouted questions, then poured hot candle wax over her arms, tried to suffocate her with a belt and waterboarded her.
‘I remember trying to stay awake, that was my way of fighting. And then, the electric shocks begun, that was the most painful. My body was trembling uncontrollably. I had no control of my body,’ she explained.
Loretta’s family had connections with the military and she was released a few days later. But nobody was ever brought to justice for the abuse she suffered as a young activist.
One of the men who tortured her is now a member of congress.
However, Loretta never gave up her human rights work. She is now Head of the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights, the national human rights institution in the country.
The wheel of torture
Nearly 40 years on — and despite the Anti-Torture Act being passed in 2009 — torture is still widespread in the Philippines.
State security forces, including police officers, continue to torture suspects and prisoners.
In January 2014, Loretta received a call reporting the discovery of a ‘torture wheel’ in a police intelligence facility in the city of Biñan, south of Manila.
The officers would decide on which torture techniques to use on detainees by spinning a wheel.
A ‘30 second bat position’ meant that the prisoner would be hung upside down like a bat for 30 seconds. A ‘20 second Manny Pacman’ named after a famous Filipino boxer Manny Pacquio, meant that a detainee would be punched non-stop for 20 seconds.
‘It was the first time I saw something like that. They usually torture people to extract information but this was being done for entertainment.
It was shocking.’
How you can help
Torture is illegal in the Philippines. In reality, it remains rife. And when victims are too scared to talk, the perpetrators escape justice. Your voice can bring about change.
As part of our global Stop Torture campaign, we’re fighting for justice for torture survivors all over the world. Alfreda Disbarro is one of them.
Alfreda was in an internet café near her home in Manila when she was arrested and accused of begin a drug dealer.
Once inside the police HQ, Alfreda’s horrific ordeal began. A police officer placed a bottle on Alfreda’s head and aimed his gun at it.
‘I was so afraid that I would get shot. I just closed my eyes in fear.’
He didn’t shoot, but then a more senior officer took her to another room.
Alfreda told us he asked her: ‘Can you take my kicks?’
She said: ‘No, sir.’ He then kicked Alfreda — hard, so hard she fell against the wall.
This was just the start of her ordeal. She would later be subjected to a series of brutal and terrifying torture methods by those officers of the law.
Just like Loretta, Alfreda hasn’t seen her torturers brought to justice.
Torturers, regardless of who they are, need to be held to account. But the police are under pressure to obtain ‘results’ and will do almost anything to get them.
Call on President Aquino to admit the problem and stop the torture. He must show that no one in the Philippines is above the law, not even the police, and that no one gets away with torture.
