A Village Girding for Attack

On January 27, 2006, government troops occupied the upper floor of the Barangay [village] hall of Malibong Matanda, Pandi, Bulacan. Since then, soldiers belonging to the 56th IB have been conducting operations to flush-out suspected New People’s Army insurgents. But for the villagers, it has become a long nightmare.

BY TYLL LABUNG
GITNANG LUSON NEWS SERVICE
Posted by Bulatlat

Malolos City, Bulacan – The Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) party-list group, the Alyansa ng Mamamayan Para sa Pantaong Karapatan (ALMMA or People’s Alliance for Human Rights)-Bulacan, and other people’s organizations have recently conducted a joint fact-finding mission on the alleged harassment of residents of Malibong Matanda and Malibong Bata villages in Pandi, Bulacan by elements of the Philippine Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion

Pandi Mayor Oliver M. Andres said the Army detachment was already in place and the soldiers were already deployed and in operation before he was informed of their presence.

It was only two days after the soldiers arrived that they made a courtesy visit to his office, Andres added.

PSInsp. Alfonso G. Cruz, Pandi deputy chief of police, corroborated the mayor’s testimony.

Cruz said the commander of the detachment reasoned that the local authorities were not informed because it was already late in the night when [the soldiers] arrived.

At a loss

Andres admitted that he too was at a loss on the real intention of the army deployment. He said he was told by the detachment commander that the soldiers’ intention was community service, but of what type, it was not made clear.

He said the army commander reiterated that there were reports of sightings in his locality of armed men the soldiers suspect to be members of the New People’s Army (NPA).

The army commander also told the mayor that in their intelligence reports they had recovered firearms, but as to where and how was not also made clear.

Andres agreed to host a dialogue between the people of Malibong Matanda and Malibong Bata villages, both in Pandi town. He also promised that the municipal council will pass a resolution should a request be submitted to his office.

No identity

Both by the mayor and the deputy chief of police refused to divulge the identity of the supposed commander of the army detachment, citing the supposed need for a formal request from the fact-finding mission and procedural purposes.

Barangay Captain Librado Galvez of Malibong Matanda said the soldiers arrived on the evening of Jan. 27, 2006 and immediately at dawn the next day, made the rounds of the village

Galves said that in his talk with the Army team’s supposed commanding officer, the soldiers refused to state their mission in the village. He also declined to reveal the name of the Army commander.
 
Galvez said up to nine fully-armed soldiers had occupied the upper floor of the village hall. Since the occupation of the village hall, he added, the local council has not been able to conduct a single session. He said he was also not informed of the soldiers’ arrival.

Go somewhere else

The village head said that he even suggested to the soldiers that they look for some other place to stay so as not to disrupt the normal activities in the hall. He said he volunteered to find a house the soldiers can rent or a place for the soldiers to pitch their tents in order to ease the growing fear and discontent among the village residents.

Galvez told the fact-finding team that the community is afraid of the presence of the military.

“My constituents don’t want anything to do with (the military),” Galvez said. “The people are not used to seeing and living with armed men in their barangay. They just want their peaceful life back.”

In an interview with village residents who requested not to be identified for fear of possible retaliation, they said that ever since the military was deployed in their community, the delivery of social services has been suffering.

Village officials had to make do with a makeshift office in their homes or elsewhere.

Local folks are now afraid to go out to their farm to work, lest they suffer the consequences of being branded as NPA members.

Galvez said the Army detachment had not made known how long they intend to stay in the village.   

The soldiers are conducting “house-to-house” operations in full battle gear and conducting interviews and “interrogations,” residents said.

They are also asked what organizations there are in the barrio and who among them belong to what group, they said. Most of the time, they added, the men who were visited are asked what armed group they belonged to and what type of weapons they possess.

Invariably, the soldiers ask about the party list group Anakpawis and its municipal coordinator Petronilo Jose, they said. The military claims that Anakpawis is connected with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA.

Residents say the soldiers always do the rounds of the villages late at night.

Interrogation 

According to a 46-year-old farmer and a member of the local chapter of Anakpawis, he was in his watermelon farm the first time they visited his house.

Upon seeing him, the soldiers asked if there were any organizations present in their locality. He told them there is one and that he is in fact a member of Anakpawis.

He said the next time they visited him, they repeatedly cajoled him into admitting that he was in possession of guns. He said the soldiers repeatedly asked him, as well as his children and workers, what type of firearms he had.

The farmer said he managed to muster enough courage to ask the soldiers what they were doing in a peaceful village like theirs.

He also told the soldiers it was the first time he had seen armed men in his village. He also wondered why it was the Anakpawis members, of all the people in the area, who were being visited and questioned.
  
Ka Nilo

Petronilo Jose, fondly called Ka Nilo by the barrio folks, is the municipal coordinator of Anakpawis in Pandi, and according to the people interviewed was the target of the deployed Army team.

Since the soldiers arrived, according to the sister of Ka Nilo, they have been lurking around their house at night.

Once, when she was visited by the soldiers, they asked her of the whereabouts and activities of her brother, and asked for a copy of his picture.

She said the soldiers claimed it was part of their standard operating procedure. They visited the Jose household three times.

In one incident, she was surprised to learn that soldiers were waiting on a road that was frequented by Ka Nilo every time he fetched his kids from school.

That was the cue that his brother was on the military hit list, and target of a possible assassination attempt, she said.

According to her, his brother is active in helping implement the socio-economic projects in the community and there is no reason for him to be on the military hit list.

However, she expressed fears that Ka Nilo would be killed like what happened to the leaders in Hacienda Luisita and more recently to the village officials in Parian, Mexico, Pampanga who were murdered after being hounded by the military.

Posters

Posters pasted on the walls and posts in the village testify to the fondness and admiration of the people of the barangay to Ka Nilo.

“OK KA!!!  KA NILO… IKAW ANG AMA NG PROYEKTO PARA SA MAHIHIRAP” (You’re OK, Ka Nilo, you are the initiator of projects for the poor), read one poster.

Grace Utanes, 48, for whom Ka Nilo has been working as a driver for years, also sees no reason for the military to be after him. What she knows is that Petronilo was active in organizing cooperatives and projects for out-of-school youth and other productive undertakings.

She added that the presence of the military in the area was not needed, for in the eight years that she had lived in the barangays, she had not witnessed anything wrong.      

By the end of the day, the fact-finding mission concluded that one of the targets of the military deployment was Petronilo Jose because since the soldiers arrived in the area, it was he the soldiers were after though they did not know his full name nor have they seen him in person.

The mission also concluded that the unexpected presence of the Army detachment had created fear and discontent among the people.

As an initial step a dialogue is being arranged by the town mayor between the people and the military. Gitnang Luson News Service/Posted by Bulatlat

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