Last Seen:

Date

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Karen Empeño, was a Sociology major doing research in research work in farming communities in Hagonoy, a seaside town about 40 kilometers northwest of Metro Manila, for her graduation thesis. Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeño and Manuel Merino, were seized before dawn on Monday (June 26, 2006) from a farming village outside Hagonoytown.  The chair of the University of the Philippines student council said witnesses reported the gunmen removed a shirt worn by Karen Empeño and used it to blindfold her; he blamed the abduction on the military.   The commander of the army's 7th Infantry Division that operates in the region said the three were members of the communist New People's Army and were collecting money from fish pond owners in the area. He said, however, that none of his troops reported holding the activist, although other military groups outside his command, particularly intelligence units, may have seized them. He told the Associated Press, "According to our investigation...many people are happy that they have disappeared because they have been extorting money from them, so we are happy as well that they are gone, if it's true that they are gone." 

On June 30, 2006, UP students hold a rally inside the Diliman Campus to demand the immediate release of the two abducted UP students in Bulacan.   

On July 05, 2006, a militant student organization from the University of the Philippines (UPD) held a picket protest in front of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) office in Quezon City, together with Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) and Samahan ng mga Anak ng Desaparecidos (SAD), to protest the abduction of Karen Empeño and her companions and demand their release.   The fate and whereabouts of Karen Empeño, Sherlyn Cadapan, and Manuel Merino are still unknown to this writing

details about their circumstances.