Last Seen:

March 30

Zambales
ABNER HIZARSA, 55 years old and a store owner and a resident of Ilwas village, Subic town, Zambales province, was reportedly missing since noon of March 30, 2007.   According to Abner's wife Cris dela Cruz-Hizarsa, on March 22, her husband was driving his tri-bike to Ilwas Elementary School to bring lunch to his daughter, a grade 5 pupil in the school, when he was blocked by armed men aboard a white van, snatched, and forced inside their vehicle. Witnesses said the abductors were "decent-looking," wearing short-sleeved polos, and had been waiting at a soft drinks store at the corner where Abner tried to take a turn.  The abduction was witnessed by a retired town policeman who resides near the street corner and was the one who filed a blotter with the Phil. National Police. A traffic patrolman who was in front of the school also witnessed the abduction and tried but failed to stop the van when it passed in front of him.   Mrs. Hizarsa said that her husband was a former activist and was arrested and detained several times. He was released in 1992 and became a member of SELDA, the organization of former political detainees, which looks after the rights and welfare of political detainees and their families and advocates amnesty and freedom for political prisoners.  According to Mrs. Hizarsa, soldiers of the 24th Infantry Battalion under the 7th Infantry Division of the Philippines were deployed in Subic a few weeks before Abner's abduction. The soldiers had been going from house to house, harassing and threatening the villagers about the presence of members of the New People's Army in the area and threatening them not to vote for the progressive party-list groups Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, and Gabriela.  Mrs. Hizarsa also learned from neighbors that the week before the abduction, a white van with the last numbers 922 had been parking near the Hizarsa's store at the market every day in the early morning when Abner comes to open their store. The neighbors did not give attention to the van, thinking that it was police surveillance for an anti-drug operation. Also a week before the abduction, a beautician at the market told Mrs. Hizarsa's mother that she saw a man taking pictures of Abner at the store.   The Hizarsa family and friends had searched at a military camp in Bataan but had not yet found Abner.

details about their circumstances.