Torture as a method in obtaining evidence and confessions

Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, 01.09.2013 

Torture to gain confessions has been practiced in the past, most notably by the inquisitors of the Catholic Church during Middle Ages Inquisition period and even later by European countries and their colonies to gain confessions from suspected heretics. Its methods were later adopted by despotic sovereigns. The practice of torture was never abrogated totally and its use remains todate with more sophisticated ways using modern-day technology and techniques.

Torture was used by the Nazi and other Fascist Countries in Europe against Partisans and by the Japanese in the Philippines against the suspected guerillas.

After the Second World War, it ws reported that US POWs were tortured by their captors to gain military informations. Studies related to these reported incidents led to the training US troops on survival in a method called SERE or Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape which later be vthe model for enhanced interrogation to be used on detainees (Morris, 2009). In 1963, the CIA developed the Countertintelligence Interrogation Manual (KUBARK) 1963). All tools of the trade seen today in the American interrogation methodology of detainees are ion this manual. It was used by the CIA in the Vietnam War in their Operation Phoenix in their torture camps (the forerunner type of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture camps) which was responsible for the death of nearly twerntyone thousand North Vietnamese (Hayden 2009)  

It is plain to see that the behavior that disturbed so many and blamed on the few military personnel, were really part of a systematic plan with full authority of the administration. What obviously changed everything were the photographs taken by the troops that became public. Those photographs were published world wide and someone had to pay.

Prior to 9/11 the interrogation of detainees was handled by the FBI, a law enforcement agency, with the purpose of prosecuting in court. In order for this evidence to be admitted in court it would have to be legally obtained. Evidence obtained through torture is not legal therefore not admissible in court. Since 9/11 the emphasis was on national security, preventing the next 9/11, catching those responsible for 9/11, and not prosecuting the perpetrators.


The patience of the administration for the information was short and they wanted results. Post 9/11 handling of certain high value detainees has been turned over to the CIA, not a law enforcement agency, does not interrogate on the pretext of going to court but to obtain information at whatever cost.


The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Law-Enforcement agencies, being trained by their American counterparts, obviously learned to use the torture method of obtaining informations and confessions at whatever cost. Survivors of AFP and PNP detentions told of nerve-wracking stories of torture.


Even the method of warrantless arrests, enforced disappearance and the likes, a now common place in the Philippines, is considered by many to be imported from the US.



The president of the Philippines, despite his promise to end these inhuman practices, has failed to stop it. Persons continue to be arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law. They ceased to be protected from abuses and tortures since they became invisible from the eyes of the law.

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