Dorris Cuario: Going Up Against 'The Butcher'

She had been a human rights worker since 1999, and had become immune to military harassments.  But Dorris Cuario, Karapatan secretary general still cries for human rights victims.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat

She carries two tetra packs of orange juice and two pieces of pork empanada and gives them to two 15-year old boys who have been in sanctuary in a religious institution here in Manila.  The boys are charged with murder, frustrated murder and rebellion by the Municipal Trial Court of Calauag, Quezon.

“O, kumain muna kayo,” (Here, have some food.) Dorris Cuario tells the two boys as if they were her own children.

This has been the case for Dorris, 41, a human rights worker in the Southern Tagalog region since 1999. The biggest “family of victims” she had to help assist was that of the refugee camp of victims from the island-province of  Mindoro Oriental at the Philippine Christian University (PCU) in Cavite.

Southern Tagalog, the countries largest region in terms of land area, covers 10 provinces - Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, Rizal, Quezon, Palawan, Mindoro Oriental, Mindoro Occidental, Romblon, Marinduque.

Military reports name the region as one of the hotbeds of the communist movement, hence, the heavy military deployment and operations here. At present, 32 battalions of the Philippine Army are deployed in the region.

Consequently, Southern Tagalog has the highest number of political killings since 2001. The regional chapter of Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights), of which Dorris has been secretary general since 2004, has recorded 137 victims of summary executions while 24 have been victims of enforced disappearances.

It is in Southern Tagalog where Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan first unleashed his fierce, anti-insurgency tactics under the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency. This is also where the notorious general earned the monicker “Butcher of Mindoro” in the wake of human rights abuses due to counter-insurgency operations in Mindoro Oriental from 2001 to 2004.

Dorris has been with Karapatan all this time and she said she has had numerous brushes and verbal encounters with the military.

In April 2004, she headed a fact-finding mission team in Mindoro Oriental where they were stuck inside a church surrounded by soldiers. A similar incident happened November of the same year when anti-communists protesters stoned and attacked their fact-finding team in Mindoro Occidental.

Dorris has been part of numerous exhumation upon requests of families of victims of summary executions.

Victim

Dorris was herself a victim of human rights violations. In 1996, she and eight of her co-workers were arbitrarily arrested in the picket line. Dorris was then a trade union worker in a textile company in Laguna.

After nine days in jail, Dorris and her co-workers were released but had no job return to because their employer did not want to take them back. It was then that Dorris worked as a full-time trade union organizer.

Though she regards her trade union work experience as a good foundation building, she says she found her true worth in human rights work.

Vilification

With the assistance she and gives to victims and their families, Dorris has also earned the ire of the military. In fact, she has been a victim of a vilification campaign since she replaced Eden Marcellana as secretary general of Karapatan-ST.  Marcellana was abducted and killed, along with peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy in April 2003 in Mindoro Oriental.  The perpetrators belonged to a military-formed death squad.

In a recent propaganda material distributed by the group called Mamamayan Ayaw sa Komunista (Citizens Against Communists) in the towns of Lopez and Gumaca in Quezon province, she was charged as an NPA supporter.

“Naku, pang-ilan na ba yan?” she said as she held up the leaflet. She says she could not count how many times a defamatory leaflet against her has been printed by so-called anti-communist groups.

But these has not frightened her, she said. “Manhid na ako sa takot,” she said, “pero naaawawa pa rin ako sa mga tao.” (I’m immune from fear.  But I still feel pity for the victims.)  Bulatlat

BACK TO TOP ■  PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION  ■   COMMENT

© 2006 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Media Center

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