A/HRC/13/42* page 178 themselves perpetrating the abduction, detention, and torture, they also miserably failed in conducting an effective investigation of the respondents’ abduction” when a habeas corpus petition was filed on behalf of Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo. Date of release On 13 August 2007, Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo escaped from detention. Following their escape, they petitioned the judiciary seeking a writ of amparo ordering the AFP to desist from further attempts against their liberty and security, as well as ordering disclosure of certain information, such as the current whereabouts of some of the military officers involved in their abduction and detention and details of the drugs administered to them while in detention. The Court of Appeals accepted the facts as presented by petitioners, rejecting all the denials of the AFP, and granted the writ as requested. In its decision of 7 October 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals decision against the challenge brought by the Government and the AFP. The Manalo case is the first case in which the writ of amparo, a remedy recently created by the Supreme Court of the Philippines to protect persons at risk of disappearance or extrajudicial execution, was granted. Raymond Manalo stated that he was not interested in monetary compensation, as money could not compensate him for what he had gone through. The reparation he seeks is that those most responsible for his suffering be prosecuted and punished. He specifically identified some of the military officers allegedly responsible, both at the command level and among those materially in charge of his capture and much of his detention. According to the information available, no investigation or prosecution of the military personnel identified by Raymond Manalo is taking place. Additional information With regard to the credibility of Raymond Manalo’s testimony, in its decision of 7 October 2008, the Supreme Court of the Philippines states: “After careful perusal of the evidence presented, we affirm the findings of the Court of Appeals that respondents [Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo] were abducted from their houses in Sito Muzon, Brgy. Buhol na Mangga, San Ildefonso, Bulacan on February 14, 2006 and were continuously detained until they escaped on August 13, 2007. The abduction, detention, torture, and escape of the respondents were narrated by respondent Raymond Manalo in a clear and convincing manner.” The Supreme Court specifically upheld the following factual findings of the Court of Appeals: “… the abduction was perpetrated by armed men who were sufficiently identified by [Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo] to be military personnel and CAFGU auxiliaries.” “… the reason for the abduction was the suspicion that [Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo] were either members or sympathizers of the NPA”. “Gen. Palparan’s participation in the abduction was also established.” Of great importance to the link between secret detention and other human rights violations, the Supreme Court stresses the threat to the life of Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo resulting from their secret detention: “It should be stressed that they are now free from captivity not because they were released by virtue of a lawful order or voluntarily freed by their abductors [but because they managed to escape]. It ought to be recalled that towards the end of their ordeal, sometime in June 2007 when respondents [Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo] were detained in a camp in Limay, Bataan, respondents’ captors even told them that they were still deciding whether they should be executed. […] The possibility of respondents being executed stared them in the eye while they were in detention.” The Supreme Court further stresses that other persons secretly detained together with the Manalo brothers remain disappeared.