HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

GMA’s Oplan Bantay Laya Blamed for Kalinga Peacemaker Murder

Rafael Markus Bangit, slain leader of the Cordillera People’s Alliance, was a Malbong pangat (tribe leader) who mediated tribal conflicts and worked for tribal peace pacts.  Activists in Cordillera blame the Arroyo administration’s so-called Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) as the culprit in the killing.

BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat

BAGUIO CITY - People’s organizations in the Cordillera region blamed the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) for the killing of Cordillera People’s Alliance leader and Malbong Pangat (tribe leader) Rafael Markus Bangit, 47, of Tabuk town, Kalinga province.  Activists also blamed Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) as the culprit behind the spate of killings. Bangit was gunned down at 7:30 p.m. on June 8 at the Pines restaurant in San Isidro in Echague, Isabela, by bonnet-masked men on board a van. Bangit and his son Banna were on board a non-air-conditioned GL bus to Baguio City when chanced upon by the assailants at a stopover. The gunmen also shot and killed Gloria Casuga, principal of the Quezon National High School in Quezon town, Isabela when she screamed at seeing Bangit get shot. The younger Bangit was unhurt.

Markus Bangit

Peacemaker

Bangit was the coordinator of the CPA Elders’ Desk and the secretary-general of the Binodngan People’s Organization (BPO), a tribal elders’ federation formerly called Bodong Pongor’s Organization, which is affiliated with the CPA. 

Bangit was also with the CPA regional secretariat.  For several years he served as secretary-general of the CPA-Kalinga chapter.  He was also a Bayan Muna party-list provincial coordinator for Kalinga until 2004.

In his native barangay (village) Dupag in Tabuk to which Tomiangan administratively belong, Bangit served as its first barangay secretary and later became a councilman.

Bangit was a bodong (peace pact) holder of the Dangtalan tribe in Pasil, with whom his own Malbong tribe in Tomiangan has forged a bodong. 

Bangit served as a local mediator in local tribal conflicts in his native town of Tomiangan and in other provinces.  As an authority in tribal mediation and conflict resolution, he co-authored a handbook on bodong and became a lecturer on tribal conflict resolution. 

“Isuna ket mangay-ayat ti talna ken kappia,” (He loved peace and order) CPA Secretary-general Windel Bolinget said of Bangit in local dialect. 

Arroyo accountable

An indignation rally in Baguio City on June 9 assailed what they called the Arroyo administration’s systematic attack on the people’s movement.

The CPA and the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) said they hold the state accountable for Bangit’s slaying. A CPA statement said the state has become a mass murderer, killing all who threaten it, and demanded that “the killings must stop and justice must be served to all victims and their families.”

 “We denounce the killing of Markus Bangit, both as a political crime and a crime against humanity. It is another barbaric act by a government that perpetuates itself in power through the might of the gun barrel. Many others among us activists remain under heavy surveillance and in imminent danger of assassination by the death squads of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s government,” the CPA statement said. 

Among Cordillera’s finest sons

CPA secretary general Joan Carling said: “With the death of Rafael Markus Bangit, the CPA and its allied organizations – indeed, the Cordillera mass movement as a whole – lost one of its most committed and valuable leaders.” 

Bangit is the 682^nd victim of state killings since 2001, according to records of the human rights group Karapatan.   On June 2, he performed an uggayam (native chant) at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City when human rights advocates held a tribute to desaparecidos and other victims of human rights violations.

A primer published by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said that at least the four regions of Central Luzon, Bicol, Eastern Visayas and Southern Mindanao are listed as the priority areas in the implementation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Oplan Bantay Laya.  

However, there were also killings in Cordillera and other northern Luzon regions of Ilocos and Cagayan.

Oplan Bantay Laya, according to Bayan, aims to destroy the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) alleged political infrastructure and its alleged legal fronts. 

A Cordillera human rights advocate said that under Oplan Bantay Laya, the military and its hired hitmen will “liquidate five activists per week.” Bulatlat

BACK TO TOP ■  PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION  ■   COMMENT

© 2006 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Publications

Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.