This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. IV, No. 45,
December 12-18, 2004
Shots shattered the evening calm as a peasant leader, Marcelino Beltran, went out of his house to greet some “visitors.” The visitors pumped bullets into his body and he died two hours later – the eighth to fall following the Nov. 16 massacre of seven farmers at Hacienda Luisita.
BY ABNER BOLOS
Contributed to Bulatlat
HACIENDA LUISITA,
Tarlac City- It was about 9 p.m. of Dec. 8. With no electricity in the
remote barangay (village) of San Sotero, Sta. Ignacia, Tarlac, the night
was pitch dark.
Marcelino Beltran, 53, chairperson of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid
sa Tarlac (Peasant Alliance in Tarlac), just had dinner with his family
and was preparing things to bring for the next day's nationwide peasant
protest against the Hacienda Luisita massacre when dogs started barking in
their yard.
Thinking that visitors have arrived, Beltran, a retired sergeant in the
Philippine military before joining farmers groups, casually went out of
the house to greet them.
What happened after that is narrated by his family. His son, 18-year-old
Mark, told Bulatlat that he heard voices asking his father if he is indeed
Marcelino. Mark scarcely heard his father's reply when bursts of gunfire
rang out, shattering the evening silence.
Dashing outside, Mark and his mother, Simeona, and the other children saw
Beltran sprawled on the
ground, bloodied but still breathing, a mere 15 meters from the house.
Bleeding in the arms of his
wife, Beltran was able to utter his final words in Ilokano: "Suldado
daggidyay nagpaltog" (Soldiers did the shooting).
Family members recount that as they were on board a tricycle to bring Beltran to
the Camiling District Hospital kilometers away, armed men in fatigue uniform
accosted them and asked whether the patient they were carrying was Beltran.
Fearing for their safety, they answered "no." Those who had shot Beltran were
leaving no chance, the beleaguered family thought.
Beltran died two hours after
the shooting and he never even reached the hospital. He was the eighth farmer to
fall following the Hacienda Luisita massacre that claimed the lives of seven
striking workers.
Family
statement
Reporters covering the
police beat that night were told by authorities that Beltran’s family had given
a statement saying the military was in no way
involved in the killing.
Asked about the supposed statement, Mark said in disbelief, "Why do they twist
our words? I told them that my father told us soldiers shot him. Why would they
lie?"
The answer may be found in Hacienda Luisita, the vast sugar plantation in this
city owned by the family of former president Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, where on
Nov. 16, at the picket line of striking workers, at least seven people were
killed and scores wounded as nearly a thousand elements of the 69th IB, PA and
the Philippine National Police moved to break the strike. The enforcers used
water cannons, truncheons, tear gas and, the striking workers said, bullets.
More than 100 striking workers were also arrested.
Several vehicles, motorbikes, and bicycles, as well as foodstuffs and personal
belongings of protesters were either destroyed or confiscated by the soldiers
and police minutes after the shooting.
The massacre has been attributed to directives by Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas for the police and military to enforce her “return to work” order, hence, to break the picketline.
Beltran, a key witness in
the Senate and House investigations on the Nov. 16 carnage, was scheduled to
appear in the final hearings in Metro Manila on Dec. 13 and 14 to testify on the
ballistics aspects of the case: guns and bullets used, bullet trajectories, and
the like.
As chair of the provincial chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP
or Peasant Movement in the Philippines) and vice chair of AnakPawis (toiling
masses) in Tarlac, he was active at the picket line in the hacienda from Day 1
of the strike. He also looked after the welfare of the union members and their
families and, more so, in the investigation to prosecute the perpetrators of the
massacre.
A tenant farmer in his barangay, some 30 kms west of the hacienda, Beltran was
deeply involved in a land dispute with the landlord at the time of his death.
Friends say that the bitter land dispute is enough reason for his murder. But
all agree that the immediate cause of his death is his support for the
plantation and sugar mill workers in Hacienda Luisita. Bulatlat
© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.