21st
year of “Bloody Thursday”
Escalante Massacre Remembered, Militants Say ‘De Facto Martial Rule’
Exists
Protesters
commemorated the massacre of 20 activists and wounding of tens of others
in Escalate town during Martial Law. Twenty-one years after the massacre,
the military perpetrators in the killing remain unpunished, while the
massacre survivors and the families of those killed are yet to be
indemnified.
BY
KARL G. OMBION
Bulatlat
BACOLOD City – While
Sept. 21 was marked by protests in different parts of the country and of
the world to commemorate the declaration of Martial Law, in Escalante
City, the protest was particularly significant as it also commemorated the
killing of 20 activists in what was called “Escalante massacre” 21 years
ago.
Escalante City, some
96 kms. north of this city, was where around 1,000 massacre survivors,
victims’ families, friends and activists gathered to remember those who
fell in the carnage, also called “Bloody Thursday.”
In mid-afternoon on
Sept. 20, 1985, tensions were high at the Escalante public plaza just 50
meters across the town hall as thousands of sugar workers, farmers,
fisherfolk, students, urban poor, professionals and church people,
carrying placards, some bamboo sticks, and chanting anti-government
slogans were staging a protest in commemoration of the 13th anniversary of
martial law.
The protesters were
tightly encircled by some 50 combat-ready Regional Special Action Forces (RSAF),
plus local policemen, members of the Civilian Home Defense Force (CHDF),
and unidentified armed civilians.
Minutes after town
mayor Braulio Lumayno, with former congressman Armando Gustilo and their
armed bodyguards left the town hall, a volley of gunfire from automatic
rifles and a caliber .60 machine gun suddenly burst. A few minutes after,
the streets were littered with blood and scores of terrified protesters
were moaning as they lay on the ground.
The shooting claimed
20 lives – their bodies found sprawled at the rally site and in nearby
sugarcane fields. Thirty others lay wounded. A bank, concrete walls, and
some houses in front of the town hall were peppered with bullet holes.
Three low-ranking
policemen were later jailed for their role in the massacre, but were
released on parole in 2002. A ranking police officer in command of the
RSAF unit was reportedly redeployed in other provinces and was recently
promoted to the rank of senior superintendent.
No local officials
and other dignitaries present in the “Bloody Thursday” of September 1985
were ever summoned for investigation or trial.
Fred Cana, National
Council member of Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s
Rights), said that 21 years after, not a single victim – nor any of their
relatives – of the Escalante Massacre, also known as “Bloody Thursday,”
has been given justice or indemnified.
Unchanged
Cana said that their
commemorative protest action aimed not only to draw the public attention
to the continuing cry for justice of the victims’ families, but above all,
to warn them that the conditions that led to the tragedy remain basically
unchanged, if not worse.
Twenty one years
after, there have been more political killings, massacres, salvaging, mass
dislocations caused by the state’s oppressive and repressive policies and
programs, said Cana.
He added that the
worse turn came from the time Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted by
people power to the presidential post, to the present. “She is not only an
embodiment of Marcosism without Marcos, but a worst reincarnation of
Marcos open fascist rule,” he added.
Worse than Marcos
At the Sept. 21
protest rally at the Bacolod public plaza, Felipe Gelle, secretary general
of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance)-Negros
said, “We are under a de facto martial rule even if government insists
that democracy reigns in this country.”
Gelle told
Bulatlat that this is shown by the widespread extra-judicial killings
of left activists, the stifling of the voice of dissent of the critics of
administration, the accommodation of retired generals in key civilian
posts, the strengthening of GMA’s cronies and their control of economies,
the stepped up militarization in the rural areas, the intensification of
assaults on the economic rights of workers and farmers.
In many ways, Gelle
said, GMA is worse than Marcos. “What Marcos did in terms of political
killings and dictatorial rule in more than 20 years, GMA achieved only in
four to five years, and her crimes against the Filipino people continue,”
he said.
Gelle said that the
democracy that government claims is nominal and bogus; it is “a mere cover
up for its puppetry, dictatorship and fascism.”
“This government has
not only failed in heeding the lessons of the past, but trampled the
rights of the people, and bungled most opportunities along the way for our
people and nation to grow and develop,” he added.
Gelle however
stressed that the people are not cowed, and instead will continue to
muster the necessary strength despite all the hardships and repression, to
put an end to this hated regime ruling by the sword of terror.
“Certainly, GMA and
her fascist clique will suffer the same fate that befell Marcos,” he
concluded. Bulatlat
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