By VICTOR GREGOR LIMON

“Midnight, our sons and daughters were cut down and taken from us

In the trees our sons stand naked through the walls our daughters cry.*”

From afar, I could see Nanay Linda waving at me, laughing at the way I was drenched in sweat and catching my breath. Embarrassed that I was ten minutes late for the interview, I apologized profusely for making her wait. She only continued to laugh, and I realized the painful irony: Ten minutes was nothing compared to more than seven years of waiting.

The years of anguish have taken their toll on Nay Linda since the first time I interviewed her as a sophomore news writer. Though her warm smile was still the same, more lines had crept around her eyes, and into her close-cropped greying hair.

Nay Linda welcomed me inside her house, the news program on the television threatening to drown our voices. “Saan tayo magsisimula?” she asked me after handing me a glass of water and asking Tatay Asher to turn the volume down.

Then she took me back seven years ago—long before her daughter was taken away by military agents, long before the endless days of searching and longing, long before the terror of uncertainty and the rare sparks of hope.

Here is a story we could not so easily forget.

‘In the wind we hear their laughter’

Known as “She” to her friends and “Nenen” to her family, Sherlyn was someone who could never stay away from home for long, Nay Linda began to tell me. While she was a Sports Science major and varsity athlete at UP Diliman (UPD), Sherlyn never missed an opportunity to visit their house in Los Baños during the weekends, holidays, and family occasions.

She stayed at the Kamia Residence Hall on weekdays but would always come home every Friday afternoon. Her allowance often ran out, and she could not afford lunch anymore by the end of the school week, Nay Linda added with a laugh.

On Friday nights, Sherlyn would wash all the laundry at home to help with the household chores. On mornings and late afternoons, she would run laps around the UP Los Baños Oval.

Sherlyn often represented her school in triathlete competitions when she was a student at the UP Rural High School. During the 1993 annual games of Palarong Pambansa, Nay Linda took the trip to Ilagan in Isabela to surprise Sherlyn, who was in the 100-meter dash competition.

The game was about to start, and Sherlyn was already at the starting line when Nay Linda called to her using their family’s pet name for her: “Nenen!” Nay Linda told me she had never seen her daughter happier.

Sherlyn finished silver that year, second only to Nancy Navalta, who was then the “heir apparent” to sprinting legend Lydia de Vega. “Ngayon, kapag nanonood ako ng sports—lalo ‘pag takbuhan—‘di ko namamalayan na tumutulo na pala ang luha ko,” Nay Linda said.

‘Night hangs like a prisoner’

When Sherlyn became a student activist in UP, Nay Linda admitted that she was not surprised, though she began fearing for her daughter’s safety. In the 1990s, Sherlyn was arrested by the police when she joined a picket of SM North employees—her daughter’s first brush with the authorities.

Sherlyn then became an active member of the militant youth organization Anakbayan. In 1999, she went on to become the College of Human Kinetics representative to the UPD University Student Council.

At home, Sherlyn sometimes cooked pots of soup for the neighborhood children and gave them used plastic bottles and old newspapers to sell at the local junk shop. She showed keen awareness of the plight of those around her and found ways to help, Nay Linda said.

So, when Sherlyn found a new home among farmers as a full-time community organizer for local peasant group Alyansang Magbubukid ng Bulacan, Nay Linda supported her daughter’s decision. “Ang request ko lang, sana ma-clear na niya ‘yung isa o dalawang INC niyang subject para makuha na niya ang diploma niya,” she said.

Though Sherlyn already had a new life in Calumpit, Bulacan with her husband, farmer Valentino Paulino, she would still often call and send text messages to her family.

One night, while Sherlyn was staying in Hagonoy with her friend and fellow UPD student Karen Empeño, to research on the situation of farmers in the area, she called her family to announce that she would be having a child soon. “Madadagdagan na naman ang apo ni mommy,” she told them.

Two days later, however, on June 26, 2006, at around 2 a.m., a group of armed men stormed the house where Sherlyn and Karen were staying. The two young women were roused from sleep, blindfolded, hog-tied, butted with rifles, and dragged towards a waiting vehicle.

Also abducted was famer Manuel Meriño, who heard Sherlyn’s screams and tried to help the two. All three would be detained at various military safe houses in Central Luzon. The two women were tortured while Manuel was set on fire alive, according to the court testimony of another abducted farmer, Raymond Manalo, who escaped his captors in 2008. Manalo could not provide any information about the fate of Sherlyn’s child.

According to Manalo, Sherlyn refused to leave her friend Karen, although she alone could have easily outrun her captors. “Kahit na sabik na akong makasama siya ulit, hanga ako sa anak ko. Hindi lang sarili niya ang iniisip niya,” said Nay Linda with affectionate pride, adding that fearlessness and selflessness were two things her daughter probably learned from being an activist.

Seven years hence, Sherlyn and Karen remain missing. Nay Linda recounted the rollercoaster of emotions she and Karen’s mother, Connie Empeño, have to go through each time a woman’s body is found on riversides and abandoned lots—how they would always end up returning home with more questions than answers.

Nay Linda said her family struggled to cope with the tragedy. Tatay Asher was forced to give up his job in Mindoro for fear of harassment from military troops, while she had to divide her time into meeting government officials, attending protest actions, public fora, and court hearings.

Yet Nay Linda said her family clings to the hope that Sherlyn will once again be reunited with them. She said she feels her daughter is still alive and that now, more than ever, Sherlyn longs to finally come home.

Nay Linda keeps all of Sherlyn’s clothes in her old bedroom—even her old readings, notebooks, blue books, and the medals she won throughout her youth. Though other people sometimes hinted that it might be easier for them to accept that Sherlyn may never return, Nay Linda as a mother could not so easily give up.

‘In the rain we see their tears’

On August 31, the International Day of the Disappeared, Nay Linda joined other families of desaparecidos in a protest action held at the steps of Palma Hall. She said she often meets them during meetings of their organization, Families of Desaparecidos. They would often share funny anecdotes of their missing loved ones—though their reminiscences would always lead to tears.

Nay Linda remembers that there were already 206 cases of enforced disappearances under Gloria Arroyo’s administration the day Sherlyn and Karen went missing. Today, according to human rights group Karapatan, enforced disappearances continue—with 17 new cases under the watch of Benigno Aquino III, who assumed the presidency three years ago with promises of putting an end to human rights violations.

“Nakakatakot ang maging aktibista, pero sa sistema ngayon, pwede bang manahimik na lang tayo? Kung makikiusap o susulat lang sa gobyerno, walang mangyayari. Kailangang idaan sa sigaw para pakinggan,” said Nay Linda, who, in a way, has now become an activist herself.

Until now, the Malolos Regional Trial Court has yet to decide on the kidnapping and serious illegal detention cases against the suspected perpetrators of Sherlyn’s disappearance.

Just last month, the court junked the bail petitions of two detained military officials who allegedly gave the orders for the abduction, Col. Felipe Anotado and Staff Sgt. Edgardo Osorio. Yet two other suspects remain at large: Master Sgt. Rizal Hilario and retired General Jovito Palparan himself, dubbed the “Butcher.”

“May P2 milyon na pabuya sa magtuturo sa kinaroroonan ni Palparan, pero hinahanap kaya siya? Hinuhuli ba?” asked Nanay Linda. “Natuto na akong hindi umasa sa pangako ng mismong gobyernong sangkot din sa mga paglabag sa karapatang pantao.”

As we neared the end of our interview, Nay Linda shared where she draws the strength she needs in searching for her daughter: “Lagi kong napapanaginipang nakauwi na ang Sherlyn namin, nakaupo sa dati niyang kama, nakangiti. Alam kong darating din ang araw na iyon.”

Yet what truly makes Nay Linda determined to continue her fight, she said, is her determination that those who perpetrate violence against the people whom they ought to serve and protect must never be allowed to walk free and should be made answerable to their crimes.

Her brave words reminded me of a picture drawn by Sherlyn’s niece Eunika, who would have been about the same age as Sherlyn’s child. Rendered in a seven-year old’s strokes is a sea of people with raised fists. In the middle is Nay Linda, standing on top of a jeep and holding a megaphone—fearless and defiant like her own daughter. ●

* Lyrics from U2’s “Mothers of the Disappeared,” from the 1987 album “The Joshua Tree.” The article was originally published in print in the Collegian’s September 6, 2013 issue, with the headline “Search for the disappeared.”