Neutralizing Bayan Muna

The recent murders of Naujan Vice Mayor and Bayan Muna member Juvy Magsino and Bayan Muna district coordinator Leyma Fortu tend to confirm charges that the Macapagal-Arroyo government has a policy of “neutralizing” Bayan Muna and its members, particularly in the island of Mindoro where 20 of the 37 Bayan Muna members killed were from. It proves, says the militant Party-list group, that Mindoro is being used as a laboratory for counter-insurgency by the military.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA 
Bulatlat.com

He specifically pointed out the article titled, “Implications of Bayan Muna in the AFP Internal Security Operations,” written by Lt. Col. John S. Bonafos, PA, which was published as a front page material by Ang Tala, the official publication of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in its first quarter issue last year. 

The article alleged that it was the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) that created Bayan Muna and that its provincial and municipal chapters are being converted into local communist chapters. It also said Bayan Muna representatives are submitting legislations that promote the Communist Party of the Philippines’ program and that congressional funds are being used for the underground organizations’ projects. 

This article was the subject of an executive meeting between Bayan Muna and Bonafos, the author. The author supposedly told Ocampo that the information stated in the article was based on intelligence reports.

“That’s unacceptable,” said Ocampo. “His paper has no credibility.  But if they posted this as a lead article of their publication, it means they are endorsing it.” 

The paper in practice

The pattern by which Bayan Muna members have been executed in Mindoro Oriental shows that the assertions of the Bonafos article are indeed accurate and reflects AFP policy. 

As a recommendation, the paper said that “SOT operations should include the identification and neutralization of Bayan Muna members in the barangay (village).” 

The neutralization effort in Mindoro, as events have shown, includes the execution of its members. Twenty of them have been killed in Mindoro Oriental including the Albarillo couple in April 2002 and the Albano family in the town of San Teodoro in May 2002.                               

The paper also recommends that an information campaign about the alleged real motive of Bayan Muna should be exposed.   

Black propanganda materials are being distributed in Mindoro by two hitherto unknown groups: the Integrated Mindoro People Against Communist Terrorist (IMPACT) and Mindoro Laban sa Karahasan (Mindoro Against Violance) or MILABAN KA. In addition, propaganda materials distributed on May 10, 2002 by the 6^th Special  Action Forces Company elements themselves called to “Suppress and drive out of Mindoro the criminal communist NPA/NDF and their pseudo-legal organizations Bayan Muna, Karapatan-MO, Anakbayan and Gabriela which are fronts of real terrorists and killers in our province…” 

The material also said “Kill and punish all NPA and their supporters who sow terror and violence.”

Libel

The death of Naujan Vice Mayor Juvy Magsino, a member of Bayan muna-Mindoro Oriental, is now a subject of a libel case filed by Col. Fernando Mesa, commanding officer of the 204^th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA), against Irein Cuasay, Karapatan-Southern Tagalog’s spokesperson and a good friend of Magsino.

The libel case was based on a speech delivered by Cuasay at the necrological rites for Magsino last Feb 21, at the gym in Naujan town, Mindoro Oriental.  Cuasay directly attributed the killings to Mesa whom she said was the mastermind. Cuasay also charged that Mesa conspired with Naujan town mayor Norberto Mendoza and his nephew, Lt. Jovy Carmen dela Fuente who is also under the 204^th IBPA. 

To prove her claim, Cuasay said that Magsino communicated with her via text message on Feb. 12, the day before Magsino was murdered, to tell her that Magsino had received death threats, saying she would not live beyond Feb. 15.  In the same text message, Magsino told her that Mesa, Mendoza and dela Fuente are to be blamed if something should happen to her. 

Magsino, a vocal critique of the militarization of Mindoro, was permanently silenced on Feb. 13 in Barcenaga, Naujan town.  She, together with Fortu, was ambushed by motorcycle-riding men believed to part of the military death squad.    

Death squad

In a statement issued last Feb. 17, Bayan Muna-Mindoro Oriental revealed that Magsino and Fortu were killed by a death squad composed of rebel returnees which included Aniano Flores, Larry Aparato and Rishard Falla. 

It further stated that a certain Maximo Evora, head of the Governor’s Special Action Group (GSAG), and a certain Jovy dela Fuente were the ones who led the surveillance operation on Magsino when she was alive.  The death squad, the statement added, is supposedly under the supervision of the 204^th IBPA which was then under Col. Jovito Palparan.  Palparan headed the seven-battalion strong military contingent under Task Force Banahaw in 2001.  He headed the military operation plan Habol Tamaraw, an anti-insurgency campaign, which placed Mindoro as a “national priority concern” in neutralizing the revolutionary force of the CPP/NPA.

He was relieved from his post after he was implicated in the murders of Eden Marcellana, secretary general of Karapatan Southern Tagalog, and Eddie Gumanoy, president of the peasant group Kasama-TK, who were abducted in Naujan and were found dead in Bansud, Mindoro Oriental on April 22, 2003.  Palparan was replaced by Colonel Mesa. 

In her own words

A year before her killing, Magsino was interviewed by the multi-media group Southern Tagalog Exposure (STEx) regarding the human rights situation in Mindoro Oriental. 

In her own words, Magsino said “I am disillusioned, I am disappointed, I am frustrated with the position of the provincial government.”  The provincial government is headed by Gov. Bart Marasigan who, together with Mayor Mendoza, spoke at a Senate hearing in May 2003.  They denied that human rights violations are occurring in the province despite the Garcellana-Gumanoy double murder case. 

“The people are quiet because they are afraid,” said Magsino in the STEx interview. “Maybe that was what they meant when they said there is peace in our province.” 

Magsino added that the local officials from the governor to the mayors and the town councilors did not take any action in resolving the human rights cases in the province. 

Under the Arroyo administration, the regional chapter of Karapatan has documented at least 38 persons killed in Mindoro Oriental alone, 22 of them members of Bayan Muna.  Four of the persons killed were found beheaded.  As of last count, in 353 cases of human rights violations, there are 1,274 individual victims belonging to 595 families.  Until today, no one has been made accountable for these violations although human rights groups said the main perpetrators are elements of the 204^th IBPA and its death squad.

In the STEx interview, Magsino enumerated several threats to her life.

“I am frightened because at the very start I was threatened, though not directly, by Colonel Palparan,” she said.  The military officer supposedly told her “I’ll be watching you” in response to her stand against the presence of the military in their province.

“I am followed by unidentified men wherever I go,” she added.

She said that a certain M/Sgt. Hilario personally campaigned against her and told the residents not to vote for her because she was subversive.

In newspapers, she was branded by the military as an NPA (New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines).

“My dialogues with students were presumed by my detractors as going against the military.  These are just some of the psy-war (psychological warfare) and harassment I have received.  I will not be surprised if I am part of what they call an OB (order of battle),” Magsino said in the STEx interview. 

Greatest threat

The neutralization, whether political or physical, of Bayan Muna and its members should be attributed mainly to the fact that traditional politicians want to preserve the status quo.  “They try to attract the Left to participate in mainstream politics but if we do, we are marginalized,” said Ocampo.

“We are defying the threats to the lives of our members,” Ocampo said. “Although we don’t want to be sacrificing lives as we value the lives of our 37 members who have been killed, we will not let their deaths go to waste.  We will continue our advocacy for political change.”

Ocampo’s words echo Magsino’s when she repeatedly said during the interview: “The greatest threat to a society is not the reign of evil men and women but the silence of good men and women.” Bulatlat.com