Operation Bantay Laya or OBL is the latest local application of the United States sponsored and Central Intelligence Agency brainchild “low intensity conflict” (LIC). It is a mode of war not just used against the revolutionary Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front of the Philippines or CPP-NPA-NDFP waging their armed struggle for national and social liberation. But is a policy that is also directed against unarmed militant organizations and civilians critical of the Arroyo regime. These legal organizations are accused by the AFP as collaborators, supporters or front organizations of the CPP-NPA-NDFP. As stated by the coward Gen. Jovito Palparan, its Number One implementor, OBL is intended to “reduce their numbers.”

Operation Bantay Laya declares it open season for militant sectoral organizations and legal institutions that have taken the cause of the poor and marginalized. Even church organizations and personalities have not been spared. The range of victims has broadened from farmers, workers, partylist members, community organizers, activists, to churchpeople, journalists and lawyers.

Another characteristic of OBL is red-baiting and smear campaign. This inevitably led to the blacklisting of progressive organizations and the drawing up of an “order of battle” of people targeted for “neutralization,” a euphemism for physical extermination or attack.

According to the Operations Intelligence Division (OID) Conceptual Framework of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the preparation of an Intelligence Project against a target personality or organization usually takes at least one year and the time frame for “neutralization” of a target is three months.

State policy

The extrajudicial killings are, therefore, well-planned, premeditated and the result of state policy. There is a pattern. It starts with the labeling, red-baiting or vilification of activists and militants. Then this is followed by open or covert threats and surveillance. Then the modes of killing and the circumstances of the attacks are similar, happening even near police or military establishments. And these are capped by a systematic cover-up or passing of the blame that condones, encourages, induces or tolerates these attacks.

The killings are not the handiwork of ordinary criminals. They are carried out through collaborative action among the armed and civilian agencies of the government and anti-communist fanatical mass organizations often set up, funded or supported in a variety of ways by the government. OBL declares its targets guilty without due process and the military acts as witness, judge and executioner rolled into one.

Of the more than seven hundred extrajudicial killings, none has been really solved. The victims and their family still cry out for justice.

The culture of impunity being imposed by the state continues to this day. And the law and the legal and judicial system engender or contribute to this impunity.

The shameful Task Force Usig and the dubious and incredible Melo Commission tasked to supposedly investigate the killings have not yielded truthful results. They have proven to be nothing but whitewashing machines of the government.

Desecration

To wash its hands off its crimes against the people, the government has even gone far as desecrating the memories of our martyrs. Malicious reports on the identities of the martyrs and reasons why they were killed are being circulated by agents of the state. They even insultingly point to the companions and/or comrades of the martyrs as those behind their deaths.

The suppression of the people’s democratic rights is directly connected to the economic agenda which the government is pushing regardless of its irreparable damage to our lives, land and resources.

The extrajudicial killings also come in the wake of Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address where she reiterated her aggressive campaign for Charter Change to allow the unhampered entry of global corporations into the country. The so-called Northern Luzon Mega Region is largely anchored on her obsession to open mining operations in the Cordillera provinces to vested foreign interests.

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