16. Water cannons blasted the strikers and their supporters with chemical-laced water that stung their eyes and skin and initially forced them back from the front lines facing Gate1. But after they had washed away the stinging fluid, the strikers returned.
17. Hundreds of tear gas canisters were then hurled at them. This tactic was more effective in dispersing the crowd; smoke permeated the grounds and the sound of coughing, gagging and cries for water filled the air. In due time, however, a few intrepid strikers learned to smother the tear gas by either dowsing the canisters with water or burying these in the sandy soil of the oval.
18. The pay loader and the tank (“armed personnel carrier”) were then used to smash open Gate 1, the same gate management had earlier padlocked. After the third attempt, the tank succeeded but the strikers threw stones at it and forced the tank to pull back.
19. In jubilation that they had been victorious in causing the tank to retreat, scores of strikers rushed through Gate 1 towards the fire trucks brandishing their bamboo sticks and throwing everything they could get their hands on, even an LPG tank, at the assaulting tank.
20. Then a volley of gunfire rained down on the protesters. It lasted for a minute, followed by more sporadic shooting. Everyone scampered away from where the gunfire was coming from, away from where the police and military were positioned, behind Gate 1, inside the compound of the sugar mill.
21. Two of the victims who later died were shot while they attempted to clamber up a fire truck. One was shot a few meters from the perimeter fence adjacent to the gate. Two were found dead in the creek about three meters away from the barbed wire at the left side of Gate 1. Another was fatally wounded while running away from the gate with his father and the last victim was hit while running across the oval.
22. The two union presidents were chased by snipers’ bullets while they were running towards the sugarcane trucks parked about 130 meters from the gate.
23. The doctor who had autopsied four of the seven fatalities noted that based on the wounds sustained, the trajectory of the bullets indicated that the victims were running or in a crouching or prone position when they were shot. They were not in a position meant for attack. A medical team who saw many of the wounded sustained the observation of the doctor who had done the autopsies.
24. Arrested strikers, many of them suffering from gunshot wounds, testified that they were hit with rifle butts and truncheons, kicked with combat boots, manhandled and hurled into waiting army trucks by police and soldiers who bore no nameplates. Some even verbally abused their victims, castigating them for resisting the dispersal and standing their ground. Investigators attempted to lure the detained workers into incriminating themselves by demanding that they confess their “aliases.”
25. More evidence of collusion and premeditation between management and the AFP/PNP came up as the investigation uncovered the fact that an Army medical team was dispatched to the St. Martin de Porres Hospital, the Cojuangco-owned private hospital adjacent to the sugar mill, more than half an hour prior to the start of the violent dispersal on Nov. 16. Moreover, all the remaining in-patients were discharged. By 8 p.m., all the hospital personnel, including the doctors and nurses who had attended to the dying and wounded patients, were all told to go home. The hospital remained under tight military and police control up to the following day.
26. The three dead workers who the police said were positive for gunpowder burns were in the custody of the military and/or police for several hours when no relative was present or gave any permission for such tests to be made. The finding that they were positive for gunpowder burns was based purely on the say-so of those same police and military suspected to have perpetrated the massacre.
Not a single policeman or soldier sustained any gunshot wound. Nine were reported by the PNP to the media as testing positive for gunpowder burns, namely, Sr. Supt. Sabino Vengco and PO1 Christopher Villanueva of PNP-Bataan; PO1 Noriel Marcelo, PO1 Micahel Santiago and PO1 Joselito Ramos of PNP-Nueva Ecija; PO1 Joniie Francia, PO1 Venancio Asuncion, Jr. and PO1 Irwin Monreal of PNP-Aurora; and PO2 Noel Velasco of PNP Regional Mobile Group 3.
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CSI: Hacienda Luisita
(The full report of the Health Alliance for Democracy & Health Action for Human Rights on the Massacre)
Report of the Health Team on the Hacienda Luisita Massacre
A paper submitted by Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD)
and Health Action for Human Rights (HAHR)
to the SENATE COMMITTEE ON LABOR
(12 January 2005, Philippine Senate)
Introduction
On November 6, 2004, over 5,000 workers and agricultural laborers of Hacienda Luisita began a strike in order to highlight their demands for higher wages and better working benefits and conditions, as well as signify their disgust over the company’s union-busting and unfair labor practices. These were the main issues that have worsened their already miserable plight.
At the backdrop is the long-standing problem of land. Despite the coverage of the hacienda under Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in 1987, the Cojuangcos, who were the landowners of the hacienda, opted for the Stock Distribution Option (SDO). SDO was one of the non-land transfer schemes that made the CARP beneficiaries supposedly “part-owners” of the land while virtually maintaining their status as workers or agricultural laborers. Hence, this historical failure to implement the fundamental principle of “land to the tiller”, which is the social justice aspect of land reform, set the tenor for the current struggle within the hacienda.
Immediately after the strike was set, two attempts were made by the local PNP to break the picket-line and disperse the strikers: the first on the evening of November 6 itself and the second on the morning of November 7. Both attempts failed as the number of strikers and their families and supporters swelled to thousands and bravely defended their positions.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), through Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, then took over the issue through the “assumption of jurisdiction” and immediately issued a “return-to-work” order on November 10. After being largely ignored, Sec. Sto. Tomas then issued an order on November 15 “deputizing” the AFP Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) to assist the Philippine National Police-Region 3 and local DOLE officials in enforcing the “return-to-work” order.
