HE TOOK a mop and forced the dirty and damp rag at the bottom into my mouth.”
This is how police compounded the humiliation of Alfreda Disbarro after hours of beating and torturing her.
“The police officer asked: ‘Can you take my kicks?’ I said, ‘No sir’,” she said. “He then kicked me so hard that I fell against the wall. He punched me continuously and hit me with a wooden baton. He punched me in the stomach and slammed my head against the wall.”
The Filipina single mother, a former police informant, had been at a Manila internet cafe when officers pointed a gun at her and accused her of drug dealing — charges she continues to deny.
They punched and handcuffed her and took her to headquarters, where she was searched and no illegal substances were found. Then they tried to force her into a confession.
She was left in such pain she could hardly move, struggling to breathe and vomiting for days. When her sisters came to visit, she was warned not to say anything, and had to meet them in a dark room under supervision.
The following day she was forced to sign a blank piece of paper and be photographed with money and a sachet of drugs.
Police continued to play sick games with the 32-year-old, trying to shoot a bottle balanced on her head and forcing fingers into her eyes. Alfreda remains in detention, awaiting trial.
Torture is endemic in the Philippines, with reports to the country’s human rights commission growing 900 per cent between 2001 and 2013.
The country’s police force is one of the most understaffed, under-equipped and undertrained in the world, with external agencies often brought in to assist.
Detainees have endured the full spectrum of torture methods — electric shocks; beatings with wooden batons or metal bars; burning with cigarettes; waterboarding; near-asphyxiation with plastic bags; being forced into stress positions; being stripped naked and their genitalia tied to string and pulled; rape and mock-executions.
In 2014, officers allegedly invented a twisted “wheel of torture” game, in which detainees were punched or hung upside-down, depending on where the roulette wheel stopped.
