Sanico said last Aug. 26, she approached Father Lucero in a conference at UEP where their elder brother was giving a talk. She consulted his brother about a request from the Philippine Army to conduct a dialogue with the teachers of the school concerning the alarm being raised then on the active presence of the military inside the campus.
Sanico said Father Lucero responded enthusiastically to the idea saying, “Go ahead, Manay Peling, they are my friends, especially Col. Rolando Malinao, he is a good person.”
In fact, Father Bogtong said, people would sometimes hesitate to approach Father Lucero because of his friendship with the military. However, whatever doubts people harbored about Father Lucero’s fair-mindedness were quickly erased because he consistently called the military to task over the human-rights violations being reported to him.
Such actions incurred the ire of officials of the police and the military. When members of the fact-finding mission held a talk with members of the PNP-initiated Task Force Lucero at the provincial office of the Philippine National Police (PNP), some officers raised their sentiment that Father Lucero treated them as subordinates, not respecting their ranks.
Trusting
Apparently, Father Lucero regarded the police and military as equals and close friends. This is why it was easy for him to put his trust on them.
While holding the position of chairman of the Task Force on Peace and Order of the Northern Samar Peace and Development Forum, a multisectoral initiative, Father Lucero deepened his relationship with officers of the military and the police.
Sister Lydia M. Collado, RSCJ, related that when he was with them at the task force, he performed his duty with enthusiasm and child-like innocence. He initiated dialogues with the military and facilitated in many conflict resolution initiatives between warring political personalities.
Sister Collado said Father Lucero did not see any political color in any of the people he worked with, the reason why his chairmanship in the task force was successful.
So, it was just natural for Father Lucero not to be suspicious when his security detail was changed. PO2 Bation reportedly volunteered for the job and was not receiving any allowance for his duty as Father Lucero’s personal security officer.
A Communist Priest?
Perhaps unknown to Father Lucero, the military has been trying to link him to the NPA as early as 2007. The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and has been waging a Maoist revolution for four decades now.
A torture victim who is now being detained at Dancalan Provincial Jail since 2007 said that when he was still under the custody of the Philippine Army, the soldiers interrogating him kept on forcing him to link Father Lucero to the NPA.
This was also the experience of two other political prisoners who were abducted early this year and detained and held incommunicado in a military camp in Northern Samar for seven days, before they were turned over to the police.
Oplan Bantay Laya
These revelations led the FFM team to believe that Father Lucero’s killing is linked to the military’s counter-insurgency campaign, which has intensified in the Eastern Visayas area, particularly in Northern Samar.
Read or download the fact-finding mission’s report
In a joint statement, the members of the FFM said “that the spate of human-rights violations in Northern Samar is a systematic campaign of the government thru its counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, which targets progressive leaders, government critics and farmers suspected as members or supporters of the rebels.”
Father Lucero was aware of this when he wrote in his report of July 1, 2009: “These shows that the core of the AFP’s counter-insurgency operations operate on the convoluted presumption that civilian communities are NPA supporters or sympathizers, if not NPAs altogether, until proven innocent.”
A Cover-Up?
The FFM expressed their concern over the conduct of the investigation of PNP-formed Task Force Lucero.
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No matter what we think or say, there is a need to adopt the tolerant thinking of western democracies when it comes to human rights. Likewise, there is an urgent need to educate some sectors who have the mistaken notion that equate democracy with submission of other people's ideas and actions to theirs.
I remember that back in 2001, the CPP leadership lauded the ouster of Estrada as a victory for the movement because they were part of the 'coalition' behind Edsa 2. Wonder what Sison is thinking now re the state of human rights under the successor they conspired with?
In a way, the Left who came to EDSA 2, or at least the leaders who forged the anti-Estrada coalition with the forces of Arroyo and ex-President Fidel Ramos, are indirectly responsible for the obtaining spate of disappearances and other forms of human rights violations. Arroyo, in a sense, is a big, big stone the leftists hit their own heads with.
Repost link:
State of RP human rights: 1st Catholic priest killed in 400 years