August marks the sixth month of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan as military commander of Eastern Visayas. While the officer – who has since been reassigned to Nueva Ecija – claims he has been successful in crushing popular dissent in the area, his vicious anti-insurgency campaign has left hundreds of widows and orphans crying for help, grieving for justice.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat.com
SAMAR Island –An old man and his son pound palay (rice grains) on a lusong(huge wooden container); two half-naked men build a house made of wood; while an elderly woman, holding a large wooden basket at her back, gather fire wood for cooking.
Townsfolk in this hilly barangay (village) in the town of Basey are picking up the pieces and trying to live a normal life once more after braving three waves of mass evacuations last month.
But the tranquility that welcomed a group of more than a hundred foreign and local delegates of the International Solidarity Mission (ISM)-Philippines 2005 was rather eerie.
Before the second of group of delegates (to which this reporter belonged) could reach its destination, it had received information that the first group had experienced harassments from soldiers of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on their way to the place.
It was a 30-minute trek along farmlands, houses made of cogon, with bamboo and nipa lining the cemented pavement. From their doors and windows, people old and young alike watched the ISM team pass by.
Military men in uniform were seated in front of the houses.
From the top of a hill, one could see a group of people assembled outside the Barangay Cancaiyas Elementary School. The townsfolk came from eight different villages. The people gathered to tell their stories, to the ISM team, of homes burned, livelihood lost and kin hurt during the mass evacuations.
Evacuees
Fifty-one-year-old Editha Morales, a native Samarnon, said that she has lived in this barangay since birth and has never been forcefully evacuated from their home. “Not even during martial law,” she said in Tagalog.
The Philippines was under martial rule from 1972-1986 under the dictatorship of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
“Malakas yung mga bomba, nakakabingi. Akala namin tatamaan kami” (The sounds of bombs exploding were deafening. We thought we would be hit), she said.
Aling Editha, her husband and her three children abandoned their home in the morning of July 20, Wednesday, after bombs were dropped in a nearby hinterland village. Taking all their pieces of property, they headed for the gymnasium in the town proper of Basey and stayed there for almost a week. Cancaiyas is roughly 10 kilometers from the town proper.
Her husband, a farmer who planted palay (rice), coconut (for kopra) and root crops, took their carabao to the foot of the hills where her husband could go back to everyday to feed it. It was made to stay there until they went home on Monday, July 26.
Most of the residents have since come home save for some 40 families in Sitio (sub-village) Ogbok where all households but two have fled to other villages.
Some families have fled to as far as Montalban town in Rizal province, Luzon Island.
The human rights group Karapatan-Eastern Visayas (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights-Eastern Visayas Region) documented 40 cases of evacuations in this island affecting 2,433 individuals or 1,786 families.
Security for whom?
The aerial bombings were confirmed by Private First Class (Pfc.) Jullado, who was present during the community meeting between the villagers and the ISM. Jullado, who was in full battle gear, refused to give his first name.
He said he was there together with eight others from the 46th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IB PA). They were sent specifically to “provide security” for the ISM delegates.
“Binomba namin yung lugar kasi may kaaway kami dito” (We bombed the place because there were enemies here), he said.
When asked who their enemies were, he said, “Syempre yung mga NPA. Infiltrated kasi ang area na ito.”(Of course the New People’s Army guerrillas. This area is infiltrated.)
Three of Jullado’s colleagues were not in uniform. A commotion ensued between the ISM delegates and the soldiers in civilian clothes when the soldiers tried to take pictures of the delegates and the villagers.
Upon questioning, the ISM delegates found that one of the soldiers in civilian clothes, who introduced himself as a local villager, was the commanding officer of the 46th IB PA Bravo Company.
While insisting he was not on official duty, 2nd Lt. Proxian Malasig said he only went to the area to visit his troops. The dark and lanky officer also said it was his prerogative to wear civilian clothes as a security measure.
ISM delegates learned later that one of the soldiers forcibly took a resident’s shirt and wore it to the community meeting. Malasig had earlier named this soldier as Pfc. Sherwin Dacanay.
During random interviews, residents said Malasig and his men frequented their village wearing civilian clothes. The villagers said the soldiers’ presence has sent a chilling effect on them.
Hell and terror
The island of Samar has been subject to intense counter-insurgency operations under the command of notorious military officer Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan. It has been six months since he announced on local radio that he would “end all anti-government rallies” in this island. This resulted in a long list of killings, abductions, torture, harassments, and other human rights and international humanitarian law violations.
In a forum Aug. 14 in the town of Catbalogan, some of the victims and survivors testified about the inhumane treatment they have suffered from the hands of soldiers.
Cristina Abalos, daughter of 67-year old Patricio Abalos, spoke of the forcible abduction and disappearance of her father. The older Abalos was abducted on March 28 by soldiers allegedly led by 2Lt. Wilbert Basquiñas. Cristina’s testimony echoed the stories of the families of the 31 persons who have disappeared in the region during the last six months.
All the way from the town of Villareal, Rosalina and Julius Calubid, wife and son of Constancio Calubid, related how Constancio was tortured and abducted by soldiers in plain clothes on the night of July 16. The victim disappeared and after 12 days was later found dead along the riverbanks of a remote village three kilometers from the town proper.
Karapatan-EV records reveal that 25 persons were summarily executed since Feb. 10 when Palparan officially took his post as commanding officer of the 8th Infantry Division (ID PA).
