Woman ‘rescued’ from house of Balamban cult leader stands by her man

Her voice was firm as she took the witness stand yesterday and denied that she was held against her will for five years by the leader she called “Tatay” (father) and followed as “our God”.

“Dili na tinuod ang mga reports sa media o ang mga akusasyon kabahin ni Tatay,” said 33-year-old Emma Bocabal Nepomuceno. (The media reports and accusations against Tatay are not true.)

“Wala ko niya gi-detain. Akong kagustuhan ang tanan. ( I was not detained. I consented to everything.)

If the judge in Toledo City throws out the criminal case for serious illegal detention filed against alleged faith healer Casiano “Tatay Loloy” Apduhan, the man who heads the religious group “Dios Amahan” in Buanoy, Balamban town will have to be set free from police custody.

The woman who was “rescued” by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation in a raid of Apduhan’s house last March 26 testified for the first time before Judge Hermes Montero of the Regional Trial Court.

Shortly before the hearing started, Nepomuceno went up to the cult leader, still in handcuffs, to greet him. They didn’t speak, but he dug into his pocket to get something and quickly handed it to her.

When the police escorts found out that the mystery woman was Nepomuceno, they stepped in but the two had already touched base.

The cult leader gestured by pressing his closed fist to his heart, as if to signal to her, and other family members present in the court house, to stay strong.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

In a bid to save the case from collapsing, a panel of three prosecutors said they can present two witnesses, including a psychologist, to show that Nepomuceno suffered from “Stockholm Syndrome”, a phenomenon in which hostages over time develop positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying them.

The judge set the next hearing for Friday to hear the expert witness, psychologist MaryJune Delgado.

Apduhan, a former barangay councilor of Buanoy, Balamban town, sat with handcuffs in the courtroom, and watched his follower in silence.

His wife, two daughters and several relatives came to the courthouse bringing Nepomuceno.

They had just come back from a family “vacation” in Negros, said one relative.

Apduhan already posted P80,000 bail last Monday for two charges of illegal possession of firearms.

What’s keeping him in jail is the non-bailable charge of serious illegal detention. The complaint was filed by Nepomuceno’s mother, who said her daughter had been missing for five years until the family found out she was being held against her will in the cult leader’s house in Buanoy.

The mother sought the help of the Provincial Women’s Commission (PWC) under Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale, who brought in the NBI for a rescue operation.

On cross examination, Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Jasmin Depi asked how she got to know Apduhan, the married woman in the center of the controversy defended her leader.

‘OUR GOD’

She said her father was a close friend of Apduhan and was among his first followers.

“We believe in Tatay as our god,” said Nepomuceno, this time speaking in English.

She said she moved into Apduhan’s residence in November 2008 because she had a conflict with her own husband and parents.

“Tungod sa akong personal problem, nihangyo ko ni Tatay and Nanay (Apduhans) nga adto ko puyo nila. Nagtuo ko nga sila ra ang bugtong makatabang nako. (Because of my personal problem, I requested Tatay and Nanay if I can live with them. I believed they’re the only ones who can help me),” Nepomuceno said.

After the NBI raid, Nepocumeno was under the custody of the PWC and Department of Social Welfare and Development, who gave her counseling in an undisclosed location. But on April 15, RTC Judge Soliver Peras released her after granting a petition for habeas corpus filed by Emma’s sister Susana,who complained that the woman was being held against her will by the government.

The court ordered DSWD to produce the woman.

She then rejoined Apduhan’s household in the family “villa” in Balamban.

MURDER CHARGES

The existence of the cult, an open secret in Balamban, came to wider public attention when the

NBI raided Apduhan’s house to “rescue” the woman last March 26 and found a 50-foot-deep tunnel under the house where the skeletal remains of a 14-year-old boy was buried.

Separate charges of murder, child abuse, and human trafficking against Abduhan are still under preliminary investigation in the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.

Apduhan denied any hand in the boy’s death, whose circumstances remain unclear.

The boy’s father, Apduhan’s former field worker, had told the NBI that the boy was buried there after the child was offered as a “sacrifice” and that Apduhan had promised to raise him from the dead after a year.

Apduhan’s late grandfather was influential in Buanoy as a faith healer. The former barangay councilor has carried on the legacy, claiming that he heals sick people and can bring the dead back to life.

IN DEFENSE

Yesterday, Nepomuceno rose to the defense of her patron and said she wanted to set the record straight so that an innocent man would be freed.

She read aloud her affidavit and answered questions in Cebuano and English on the witness stand.

“Nihangyo ko ni Tatay og Nanay nga adto ko mopuyo sa ilang balay tungod kay naa koy problema sa amoa. Sulod sa lima ka tuig nakong pagpuyo didto, makagawas-gawas ra man ko. Wa may ni-santa nako. (I asked Tatay and Nanay if I could stay at their residence because I had problems with my family. Within the five years I stayed with them, I could go in and out of the house. No one ever restrained me),” she said.

She said she and a friend would sometimes even visit her parents’ house which is a few meters away from Apduhan’s house.

“Dili lang ko magpahibaw nila (parents) nga naa ko. Naa ra ko sa sakyanan. (I just wouldn’t show myself to my parents. I just stayed in the car of my friend),” she said.

Her parents were made to believe that Nepomuceno had left for Italy for a job but never heard from her until someone said they spotted her at Apduhan’s house.

Asked about the iron grills at the entrance gate of Apduhan’s house, she said they were installed recently to secure their belongings, and not to detain her.

Defense lawyer Danilo Yap asked the court to immediately rule on his motion for judicial determination of probable cause of guilt and then to order the release of Apduhan since there was no “victim” involved.

This was opposed by Prosecutor Depi who said the woman was still affected by her experience of being detained in Apduhan’s house, which had grilled windows and doors with a padlock on the outside.

According to studies, hostages who suffer Stockholm Syndrome are considered irrational and mistake a lack of abuse by their captors for an act of kindness.

However, defense lawyer Yap, citing the Civil Code of the Philippines, Yap said “every person is presumed to be of sound mind, in the absence of proof to the contrary.”

He deplored what he called “delaying tactics”.

“I’m extremely disappointed. The psychologist the prosecution intends to present has not even examined Emma. How credible would she be? My client has been languishing in jail since March 26 based on the postulation that he committed illegal detention. But we have now here the alleged victim,” he told the court.

“There’s no better evidence to prove the truth.

The hearing in the packed courthouse was attended by Heddah Largo and Jedidah Hife of the PWC and NBI supervising agent Rey Villordon./With a report from Tonee Despojo

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