She said that she was unjustly detained for five years, one month, and 12 days, describing the ordeal as traumatic.
By Dulce Amor Rodriguez
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — “I am happy that the truth came out and justice prevailed.”
This is how writer and organizer Amanda Echanis described her release from prison in a press briefing online on Jan, 15. “But many of our companions remain behind bars—especially peasant women advocates, artists, activists, and journalists—still waiting for decisions on their cases.”
Echanis said that her arrest was illegal and that she was framed through planted evidence. She said that she was unjustly detained for five years, one month, and 12 days, describing the ordeal as traumatic. She stressed the importance of speaking out as similar violations continue against activists and community advocates.
She linked her arrest to the broader pattern of red-tagging and vilification of activists which she said aims to silence legitimate struggles. Echanis renewed calls to stop attacks against activists and to scrap policies she described as repressive, including the Anti-Terrorism Law. She also called for the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
Echanis recalled that her detention came months after the killing of her father Randall “Ka Randy” Echanis, a longtime peasant leader and former Anakpawis national chairperson, who was killed on August 10, 2020. She said that human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and fabricated cases continue to plague the country.
“They may imprison the body, but not the fighting spirit,” Echanis said, echoing her father’s words. She shared that while in detention, she continued her studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and was later elected as councilor of its University Student Council.
Major procedural lapses in police operation
Zoe Caballero of the Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo, Echanis’s legal counsel, said that the court’s decision exposed major procedural lapses in the police operation that led to her arrest.
Caballero said that the court identified two main grounds for acquittal: the illegal execution of the search warrant and the prosecution’s failure to establish possession of the alleged firearms and explosives.
On the search warrant, the court found that police violated the required hierarchy of witnesses. The lawful occupant of the house who was present at the time did not witness the entire search. According to testimonies, police asked the homeowner to leave during the search and only allowed her back after her grandchildren cried.
The court also noted that only Echanis and her one-month-old child were inside the room during the search, despite the requirement that the lawful occupant or a family member should have been present as primary witnesses.
The court further cited a three-hour delay between the arrival of police officers and the actual search of the house. Police claimed that they waited for barangay officials to arrive even though lawful occupants were already present.
The delay, the court said, compromised the integrity of the premises. One prosecution witness admitted that he could not assure the court that the house was fully monitored during the waiting period, given the number of officers involved and the multiple possible entry points.
Because of this, the court said that it could not rule out the possibility that evidence was planted. It gave weight to testimonies from Echanis and her witness who said that they saw a man enter the house and bring in a sack that later allegedly contained firearms and explosives. The prosecution failed to rebut this claim.
The court also pointed to the lack of transparency during the search. Despite having a designated photographer, police did not take photos when they allegedly discovered the firearms, ammunition, and grenades, nor when they opened the room where these were found. The prosecution did not explain the absence of documentation.
Due to these lapses, the court ruled that the search was unreasonable and applied the exclusionary rule. It declared all seized items inadmissible as evidence, describing them as “fruit of the poisonous tree.”
Aside from the excluded evidence, the court said that the prosecution failed to establish possession, an essential element of the charges. Caballero said that possession may be actual or constructive, but the prosecution proved neither. Testimonies showed that Echanis stayed in a different room from where the firearms and explosives were allegedly found. Other occupants lived in the house, further weakening claims of constructive possession.
The court also noted inconsistencies in the prosecution’s account of where and how the sack containing the alleged firearms and explosives was found. With these gaps, the court ruled that the elements of illegal possession were not established.
Rights groups said that the acquittal affirms long-standing claims that Echanis was a victim of fabricated charges. They stressed that her case reflects the broader situation of political prisoners in the country.
Echanis thanked supporters and repeated calls to free all political prisoners and to end policies that she said enables systematic repression.
A writer, organizer and researcher of the progressive peasant women’s group Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women, Echanis was arrested on December 2, 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. She had just given birth a month earlier and was breastfeeding her infant when armed men entered the house where she was staying and conducted a search.
She was cleared by the court on January 14 after finding serious violations in the police search that led to her arrest, as well as the prosecution’s failure to prove that she possessed the alleged firearms and explosives. (AMU, DAA)
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