‘Destabilization
Plot’ a Military Farce – Ka Satur
Party-list Rep. Satur
Ocampo of Bayan Muna dismisses recent charges by top armed forces
officials that he gave communist guerrillas P5 million to bomb Metro
Manila as mere products of the “military’s wild imagination.” The charges
surfaced on the eve of a big rally led by militant peasant groups in
Mendiola, Manila.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo at the Oct. 21 rally near Mendiola,
Manila
PHOTO BY DABET
CASTAÑEDA |
Furious over military allegations that
he supposedly donated P5 million in cold cash to a New People’s Army (NPA)
unit in Aurora province, Bayan Muna (BM) Rep. Satur Ocampo faced the
rallying crowd in Morayta, Manila Oct. 21 with rage and a mouthful to say
against his accusers.
“Ako po si Satur Ocampo (I am
Satur Ocampo),” he started his speech, then asked the crowd: “Kilala
nyo ba ako? (Do you know me?)”
“Oo (Yes),” the crowd shouted
with glee then broke into a thunderous applause.
Supposedly, his question was not
directed to the crowd but to a group of generals who, a day earlier,
announced to the media that a certain “Ka Satur” channeled funds to the
NPA for the purpose of buying “bomb chemicals.” The “bombs,” they said,
will be lobbed by “New People’s Army infiltrators’ in a rally in Metro
Manila.
|
In a press conference at the Northern
Luzon Command (Nolcom) in Camp Aquino, Tarlac City (120 kms from Manila),
Oct. 20 Nolcom chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino and AFP deputy chief of
staff Lt. Gen. Samuel Bagasin told reporters that soldiers found bomb
chemicals and other paraphernalia in a raid of an NPA camp in Aurora
(231kms north of Manila) on Sept. 27 and 28. In the incident, the army
raiding team supposedly seized a letter of an NPA leader to another
stating the bomb chemicals were funded by “Ka Satur.”
In the same press conference, Bagasin
said: “Isa lang naman ang Ka Satur na kilala natin na malapit sa NPA
(There is only one Ka Satur who we know is close to the NPA),”
obviously referring to Ocampo who was the former spokesperson of the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) during peace talks
with government in 1986-1987.
A former journalist before the Marcos
dictatorship who went underground when Martial law was declared Sept. 21,
1972, Ocampo was first captured by military agents in his hometown in
Pampanga in 1976. He spent nine years in maximum prison before escaping
from his guards during the election of officers of the National Press
Club. He went underground and resurfaced in 1986 as member of the NDFP
panel in the peace negotiations with the Aquino administration.
Peace talks bogged down in January
1987 following the massacre of 13 farmers during a protest rally in
Mendiola, Manila. Months earlier, in September 1986, government agents
assassinated labor leader Rolando Olalia. Government insiders also
revealed that Ocampo and other NDF negotiators were in the military hit
list at that time.
Ocampo again went underground but was
captured anew in 1989. He was charged with illegal possession of firearms
and detained for another four years. The case was dismissed on Aug. 30,
2002.
“Pero sa lahat ng
mga kasong inihapag laban sa akin, absuelto ako.
Absuelto si Satur Ocampo” (I was absolved of all the
cases lodged against me. Satur Ocampo was absolved), he told the crowd
while pounding the air.
Telling signs
In an interview after his speech,
Ocampo said the supposed NPA letter containing his name was obviously the
handiwork of military intelligence agents.
For one, he said the letter referred
to the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration as a “U.S.-Arroyo
imperialist regime,” a politically-wrong phrase, Ocampo said. The
politically-correct term, he said, is “U.S.-Arroyo puppet regime” which
indicates the puppetry of the Manila government to U.S. imperialist
dictates.
Second, Ocampo said if it was true
that he funded the alleged bomb paraphernalia, the NPA would not in any
way proclaim, or worse, put into writing, its supposed “benefactor.”
“That’s funny. They (the NPA) won’t do
that to anybody,” he said.
The supposed NPA letter also stated
that “Ka Satur” instructed the NPA to expedite the production of bombs to
be used for destabilizing the government that would lead to the ouster of
Macapagal-Arroyo.
Ocampo said that was the height of
malice because he is one of the leading opposition personalities
campaigning for the ouster of the president. Macapagal-Arroyo is used of
electoral fraud, corruption and human rights violations leading to calls
for her removal.
Attack
Ocampo also stressed that this latest
attempt by the military to malign his name is but part of the concerted
attacks on his party (Bayan Muna) and its members.
This, he said, is all happening in
Central Luzon where only last week, the BM provincial coordinator in
Camiling, Tarlac province, Flor Collantes, was assassinated while the
party-list’s provincial headquarters in Tarlac City, was burned three days
after. Both incidents allegedly involved soldiers from the 7th
Infantry Division (ID) under the command of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan,
Ocampo and Bayan leaders in the region said.
The 7th ID is under the
Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)
while Palparan is the general accused by human rights organizations of
being involved in several cases of violations of human rights. He has been
charged before the justice department and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR)
with the killing of human rights leaders, activists and leaders and
members of BM in the province of Oriental Mindoro and the Eastern Visayas
region.
Palparan has announced in several
media interviews he is bent on wiping out communist forces in Central
Luzon which is known to be the bastion of insurgency in the country. Last
year, Nolcom published the book “Trinity of War” which named BM as one of
the organizations considered as “enemies of the state” for allegedly being
a front organization of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
This tag, Ocampo said, has given the
military a free hand to harm BM members and leaders with impunity. Since
it topped the party-list elections for Congress in 2001, 45 BM members and
leaders have been summarily executed. Many others have been wounded in
failed assassination attempts.
This is the second time that
government agents have dragged Ocampo into redbaiting. During the election
campaign in 2004 – which BM again topped - National Security Adviser
Norberto Gonzales and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales took turns in
trading red innuendoes to Ocampo, the most notable of which was the report
that BM channeled funds to the NPA.
Ocampo said these are but products of
the military’s imagination. Bulatlat
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