HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Aftermath of Bersamin assassination
Abra Still `Northern Luzon’s Killing Fields’

The assassination of Rep. Luis Bersamin only shows the unabated killings in Abra province. The police’s claim six months ago that peace and order has improved in the area is clearly negated by the various incidents of political killing these past few months.

By ACE ALEGRE
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat

The killing of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin and his bodyguard prompted the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Cordillera to increase its forces to prevent further violence.

Cordillera PNP Spokesperson Sr. Supt. Joseph Adnol said 50 more police officers from Cordillera and a platoon from the Special Action Force (SAF) were dispatched "to secure the province.”

According to Adnol, this is on top of operatives from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)-Cordillera led by Sr. Supt. Eduardo Bayangos who are conducting investigations in Abra regarding the killing of Bersamin and his bodyguard in Quezon City, Metro Manila last December 16.

Six months ago, the PNP-Cordillera said that there was improved peace and order in the province known as “Northern Luzon’s Killing Fields.” At present, however, the Cordillera police said that they sense a very volatile situation.

On the night of December 18, a rest house of Dolores Mayor Albert Guzman was sprayed with automatic gunfire and was almost razed.

Intense political rivalry

Six months ago, PNP-Cordillera Chief Superintendent Raul Gonzales said that warring political factions failed to settle their differences and this has led to the murder of some officials.

On Jan. 13, 2006, La Paz Mayor Ysrael Bernos, 31, was gunned down in his hometown while watching a basketball game he sponsored during his town’s fiesta. At present, those responsible for the crime have not been identified.

In the middle of this year, the Cordillera police said they were able to establish that most of the recent killings were not politically-motivated but were due to personal grudges.

From January to May 2006, there were 79 incidents of crimes in the Cordillera region. Of this number, 49 incidents were “index crimes” like homicide, murder, rape, physical injury, robbery and theft. Only five of these are reportedly “politically-motivated.”

Successive political killings

Prior to the killing of  Bersamin, his relative Provincial Board Member (BM) James Bersamin was gunned down while jogging at the Bangued town plaza last month.

The night after BM James Bersamin was killed, a barangay captain and three other farmers in remote Tineg town were also shot dead. Several weeks after, a businesswoman and a court employee were reported by Cordillera police to have been gunned down in Bangued.

Even activists were not spared from the political violence in the province. On November 28, 2005 Albert Terredaño, an employee of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Abra and a human rights activist, was killed. Terredaño was on his way to the DAR office in Bangued, the capital town of Abra, when he was gunned down by motorcycle-riding armed men.

Terredaño’s killing is reportedly being linked to his involvement as DAR arbitrator in the rift between farmers and an irrigators' association supposedly being controlled by powerful politicians.

Sobriety amid tension?

Amidst the political tension, Gov. Vicente Valera – Rep. Bersamin's childhood friend, political ally and close relative – is appealing to residents of Abra to stay calm and maintain sobriety.

However, residents fear more political violence will happen especially given that elections will be held in May 2007. "Agrugin san ti gubat (War seemed to have started)," said a resident of Abra who requested anonymity.

“We wait for due process to take its course, and the wheel of justice to turn,” Valera said as he warned his constituents including Bersamin’s family not to take the law into their own hands. “Let the PNP leadership leave no stone unturned, and prosecute immediately the perpetrators of the brazen crime.”

Contrary to what his detractors claim, Valera denied being the mastermind of Bersamin’s killing. “(Residents of Abra) know who really are unabatedly and mercilessly killing people,” he said without explaining further.

Valera himself denounced the police’s “incapacity in dismantling (and) neutralizing…hired assassins belonging to private armed groups (PAGs),” even as the whole police force of Abra have been reassigned to different areas in the Cordillera region last year by then Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes as a way to stop the killings. Bulatlat

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