This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 10, April 15-21, 2007
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Kagimungan, a peasant
organization in Cagayan province has been reaping gains for the peasantry, as it
wages agrarian struggle and delivers agricultural support services. Ironically,
these gains have to be paid for in blood, with five of their leaders killed and
many other officials and members attacked by military in the villages. BY DEE AYROSO The road leading to Bagunot village in Baggao
town (some 500 km north of Manila) is lined with smear placards against a local
militant peasant organization. “Kagimungan, intay rebekken” (Down with
Kagimungan) and “Kagimungan, CPP-NPA front” screamed the signs painted on sacks
and nailed on electric posts. Kagimungan (Alyansa Dagiti Mannalon iti
Cagayan or Alliance of Peasants in Cagayan), has gained prominence in the
Cagayan Valley region for its campaign on agrarian issues, with relative success
in lowering usury rates. Ironically, five of its leaders have been killed by
suspected soldiers in the past five months. The latest victims were Arthuro Orpilla, 54
and Dionisio Battad, 55, of Bagunot village. The two went to the company
detachment of the Philippine Army’s 17th Infantry Battalion in Zone 1
in the village on March 27, and were later found dead in Lallo, a town further
up north in the province. “Bente-siete nga saksak!”
(Twenty-seven stab wounds!) Arthuro’s widow Hilda wailed as she cried on the
shoulder of a peasant leader who arrived at the wake of her husband. “What did
he do to deserve this?” she cried in Ilocano. Arthuro’s body was found March 28, inside a
sack loaded with big rocks at the bank of the Cagayan River under the Magapit
bridge in Lallo. The body bore a deep stab wound on the left shoulder, multiple
stab wounds along the waist, and what appeared to be a gunshot wound at the
lower back, according to a fact-finding team organized by Karapatan (Alliance
for the Advancement of People’s Rights). Dionisio’s decomposing body was recovered
April 3 also under the Magapit Bridge, fished out of the river by villagers.
Dionisio’s left eye and right ear were missing, and so was the little finger on
his left hand. His wrists and ankles bore tie marks. The victims’ families found out about the
recovery of the bodies only on April 4. Suspects Hilda told the Karapatan fact-finding team
that at about 4 p.m. of March 27, Dionisio went to their house and asked Arthuro
to accompany him to the army camp. Dionisio had been required to report to a
certain Sergeant Orpilla at the detachment twice a day, at 8 am and 4 pm, said
his widow, Natividad. According to Hilda, Arthuro, also a village
councilor, was being forced to report to the camp to undergo training of the
Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU). A villager who requested
anonymity said the military required all village officials to be a CAFGU member.
A relative of Arthuro said he had requested the Army to spare him from being a
CAFGU member because he couldn’t keep up with the strenuous physical training,
but the Army refused to let him go. Two detachments of the 17th IB had
been in the village since last year. Curfew is being implemented from 9 pm to 5
am, and soldiers and CAFGU members conduct roving operations at night,
supposedly, as part of keeping peace and order in the village. “Who else would be able to do this to them?
They have been harassed by the soldiers because they were activists in the
community. And the soldiers are the only ones who have guns here,” said a
Kagimungan member who asked not to be named. Agrarian struggles Arthuro is the village project coordinator of
Kagimungan, and was in charge of the agricultural machines acquired through
funding from the party-list groups Bayan Muna (People First) and
Anakpawis(Toiling Masses). Bayan Muna had funded agricultural projects
providing Bagunot village and nearby communities with a mini rice mill, palay
dryer, water pump and thresher. Anakpawis had funded a water system artesian
well. A villager said that these projects have
provided the peasant communities an alternative to the traders. Rice millers
charge P2 ($0.04, based on an exchange rate of P47.905 per US dollar) to mill a
kilo of palay, while Kagimungan’s mini-rice mill charge half the price, at P1
($0.02) per kilo. In the past years, Kagimungan had waged
several other campaigns on agrarian issues. A particularly successful campaign
had lowered usury rates in several Cagayan towns, from 40 percent to 13 percent,
achieved through persistent negotiations with traders. Kagimungan had also set up a community radio
station at the Baggao town proper in June last year. Barely a month after it
aired, the station was raided and razed to the ground by armed men suspected to
be soldiers. Dionisio’s widow Natividad recalled one time
when she accompanied Dionisio at the camp, a 17th IB officer tried to
convince them that Kagimungan is not good, that it is a front of the Communist
Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA). The couple told
the officer that contrary to his claim, Kagimungan had helped ease the debts of
the peasants in Cagayan. Natividad said that she never allowed her
husband to report to the camp alone, because Dionisio was fearful for his life.
The army officer kept telling him that he was the one who replaced Joey Javier,
she said. Five martyrs In late 2006, three peasant leaders were
slain in a month’s time in Cagayan province. On Nov. 11, 2006, Joey Javier, 44, chair of
Kagimungan, was shot dead at the Bagunot bridge in Baggao, 100 meters from the
company camp of the 17th IB which is near the river. In 2003, Javier and three other peasant
leaders survived a hacking attack by soldiers of the 41st IB
stationed in Baggao and led by Capt. George Domingo. Javier’s left arm was
severely injured. The leaders charged the soldiers with frustrated murder but a
local court acquitted the soldiers. Two weeks after Javier was killed on Nov. 27,
his successor in the organization Anthony Licyayo, 38, was found dead with a
gunshot wound in the head in his corn field in Cabiroan village, Gonzaga town.
His body was found at noon, with his one-year-old daughter, sleeping on his
chest and bathed in his blood. Licyayo went out at 8 a.m. that day to check on
his crops, carrying his daughter in a blanket slung on his shoulder. The child
was unhurt. On Dec. 13, Nelson Asucena, 19, a Sangguniang
Kabataan (Youth Council) leader and a member of Anakbayan was shot dead in front
of his house in San Juan village, Rizal town by five soldiers led by 2nd
Lt. Marcelo Pascua of the 21st IB, based in Bural village in Rizal.
The soldiers awoke the Asucena family at 10:30 pm and asked for coffee. Pascua
then asked Nelson to come out and bring them cold water, and later to put away
the glasses. As Nelson collected the glasses, the soldiers fired at him. Two days later on Dec. 15, Roque France, 64,
a member of Kagimungan and the Dagup Igorot Association, survived a shooting
attack in front of his house in Cabiroan, Gonzaga town. France was shot in the
leg.
According to the Kilusang Magbubukid
ng Pilipinas (KMP or Philippine Peasant Movement), other peasant leaders in
Cagayan were also being surveilled by the military, namely Pasciano Payay,
Albert Himmiwat and Vilma Mangili. Isabelo Adviento, Kagimungan adviser said,
that he was also being monitored by the military. In 2003, he was with Joey
Javier when they were attacked by soldiers in Baggao. Adviento said that the
attacks create fear among the peasant communities, and only worsens their
impoverished situation. The military operations and offensives do not help solve
the problems of the peasantry, he said “Hindi kami titigil hangga’t di mababago
ang sistema. Hindi kami titigil na ipagtanggol at ipaglaban ang karapatan ng
inaapi, at ang mga natamo naming tagumpay”
(We will not stop until the system is changed. We will not stop in defending
the rights of the exploited, and in protecting the gains we have achieved), he
said. Bulatlat © 2007 Bulatlat
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Cagayan Peasant Group
under Attack
Bulatlat