Martin Died in Bungled Army Operation, Villagers' Accounts Suggest
The firefight between Army soldiers and NPA rebels that resulted in the death of Chief Inspector Abelardo Martin was not a “chance encounter,” as the military has been claiming. Prior to the exchange of gunfire, residents in the area say the soldiers harassed and threatened some of them into pinpointing the location of the NPA camp where Martin was being held.
Scout Rangers shouted “Hala, sige lang!” (Go on!) and “Sige na, banatan pa!” (Go on, continue firing!) as they fired relentlessly at a hilltop camp of the New People’s Army despite Chief Inspector Abelardo Martin’s cries identifying himself. Whether from the initial or subsequent volley of shots, Martin, 52 and a prisoner of war of the NPA’s Melito Glor Command since 1999, died from gunshot wounds sustained during the rangers’ assault.
This and other information provided by residents indicate that Martin’s death was the result of a bungled operation by the Army’s Scout Rangers, and not of a “chance encounter,” as the military has been claiming.
Bulaltlat.com went with a fact-finding mission to Sitio Oblian, Barangay San Marcelino, in Gen. Nakar town, Quezon province, the site of the firefight between a composite force of about 30 soldiers of the Army’s 8th Ranger Company and the 4th Intelligence Security Unit, and the five-man NPA team guarding Martin.
The 19-person fact-finding mission was held March 10-11 and was participated in by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, the Quezon province chapters of Bayan, Karapatan, Anakbayan, and Kadamay, Pinag-isang Lakas ng Mambubukid ng Quezon (Piglas-Quezon), and Balatik-Mindoro.
Residents interviewed by the mission and Bulatlat.com volunteered information but, fearful for their lives, asked that their names not be divulged. At the time of the mission, some of the residents were on their way to live with relatives nearby. This was how they related the events.
Closing In
About 30 government soldiers marched into Barangay (village) San Marcelino on March 6 and spent the night in three rooms of the local schoolhouse. Residents could not identify the units the soldiers were from but noted that some wore camouflage uniforms while a few were in plain fatigues. A visiting farmer speculated that they might have been the same troops sighted two days earlier in Barangay Tanauan, Infanta town, some 20 kilometers south of San Marcelino.
Around 11 a.m. that day, the troops were seen having lunch in the house of a local merchant. It was then that a resident first noticed that the soldiers were being accompanied by three men wearing bonnets whom they presumed were guides. The three men took their bonnets off in order to eat. The residents were sure the men were not from the area.
Sometime in the late evening, around 10 soldiers stopped at the house of a young couple. The three soldiers shouted for the husband to come out. When he did, they approached him, brandishing their guns, and asked him where the NPA guerrillas were hiding. One soldier kept pointing his M16 at the back of the farmer’s head.
The farmer denied knowing anything about the NPA but the soldiers insisted that a boy had told them that he, the farmer, knew where the rebels were camping out. The farmer was handcuffed and a bonnet was put on his head. They then walked away, the soldiers prodding the farmer with rifle butts.
The same 10 soldiers, along with their new “guide,” proceeded to another house. It was around 11 p.m. Four of the soldiers forcibly pulled a man outside of the house. They then ransacked the house and prevented the man's wife and her two children from going outside.
Three of the soldiers, one of them pointing his gun at the farmer’s crotch, asked the man where the NPA guerrillas were and if the two sacks of rice they spotted inside his hut were for the rebels. Every time the farmer raised his voice, they would hit him in the back and sides with rifle butts. The fourth soldier, meanwhile, went back and forth to the “guide” they had picked up earlier, apparently to consult with him.
The interrogation of the farmer lasted about half an hour. When the soldiers left, one of them threatened the farmer: “You’d better be inside sleeping by the time I count to three.” The farmer was already sprinting to his hut even before the soldier started counting.
Unfriendly Fire
The NPA camp was on a hill about 50 meters high, surrounded by coconut trees and with thick foliage around the top. At the southern end, surrounded by foliage, is a hut made of branches, coconut fronds, wooden planks and plastic sheeting; the hut could accommodate at least two persons . Another 15-20 meters up the hill is the main hut with a bed, two tables and a cooking area. Finally, 6-7 meters up is another hut used as a guard post.
It was clear and moonlit when the soldiers reached the foot of the hill around midnight. Residents could not say with certainty who fired first but the shooting, they said, started almost as soon as the soldiers arrived and was likely started by the defending guerrillas. The first exchange of gunfire lasted “for a while” and was furious, with M16s, M14s, M203s and even a machine gun that sounded like an M60 being fired. There were said to be two main groups of soldiers coming from different directions.
It was after the first heavy exchange of gunfire that Martin shouted “I’m not an enemy! I’m Major Martin!” The soldiers, Bulatlat.com learned, ignored this and continued firing. The exchange of gunfire lasted for about two and a half hours and subsided around when it became cloudy and started drizzling.
One of the soldiers was hit and brought to the hut of an elderly Dumagat couple at the foot of the hill. Even during the fighting, soldiers accused the couple of having a guerrilla for a son and for coddling the NPA rebels camped on the hill. The soldier died later in the day.
By the account of the residents, the shooting continued sporadically until daybreak, at around 5:00 a.m. There was a final “large boom” and some gunfire and then the shooting stopped.
One resident said that it was already light when they brought Martin down. Though he could not say for sure whether Martin was already dead or not, he was definitely not moving or even conscious. By mid-morning, troop reinforcement arrived and the total number of soldiers in the area may have reached over a hundred.
The soldiers ransacked at least one more house before leaving, breaking a closet’s padlock, scattering clothes and taking a pet kulasisi bird that the family kept outside their house.
The Aftermath
The fact-finding mission arrived
at the NPA camp site on Sunday, March 11, three days after the fighting. The
dryness of the palm fronds, the 116 empty packs of instant noodles and a neat pile of
discarded sardine cans tend to indicate that the NPA unit and their POW had been there for
about one and a half to two weeks already.
There were spent M16 and
M14 shells scattered everywhere. The bark of the coconut trees were torn by
bullets and there were holes all over the plastic sheeting, palm fronds, water
jugs and planks, including what must have been Martin’s bed. Although there
was no blood on the bed itself, there were, on the dirt floor, pieces of gauze
and a
rice sack spotted with blood.
A resident said Martin, in preparation for going home, had asked for a woven backpack and some baskets to bring to his family as pasalubong (coming-home presents). These were among those taken by the military; the residents said the soldiers “probably didn’t even know it was Martin’s. They should return them to his wife.” Also recovered in the area was a walking stick with a carved spiral design that was apparently also Martin’s.
Military Denials
The residents’ account of events is in stark contrast to the “official” version given by Maj. Gen. Jose Lachica, head of the Armed Forces’ Joint Task Force for Southern Luzon, and Lt. Warren Lee Dagupon, leader of the assaulting Scout Rangers.
Lachica insists that it
was a “chance encounter,” not a rescue operation. The soldiers, he said,
were merely patrolling to block a group of NPA rebels that had raided Bordeos
town in Polilio island on March 2. Lachica said it was during this patrol
that the Rangers came across 20 NPA guerrillas and engaged them in a
firefight.
Dagupon, meanwhile, says
that they “chanced” upon the NPA camp. He says that when Martin identified
himself, he ordered his men to avoid
firing at the main hut and even asked Martin questions (such as the name of his
wife and where was he nabbed by the NPA) to confirm the POW’s identity. Upon
confirmation, Dagupon’s version goes, the troops started attempts to secure
the hut. They entered the camp at about 1:30 a.m. after an hour-long firefight.
Martin, by Dagupon’s account, was still alive at 7 a.m. although he could not
talk anymore and died about 9 a.m.
Moreover, a press release by PNP Regional Director Chief Supt. Domingo Reyes Jr. said that the NPA rebels shot Martin before they fled.
But the residents’ account, especially regarding the soldiers’ use of guides, points to a deliberate military operation. It is also more in line, notwithstanding some minor variances in detail, with the statement released by the spokesman of the NPA Melito Glor Command and the National Democratic Front-Southern Tagalog.
Tirso “Ka Bart” Alcantara of the NPA claimed that the government troops were engaged in a “planned rescue operation” involving the Scout Rangers and the Intelligence Security Unit. He also said that the custodial force’s attempts to bring Martin to safety were repulsed by the continuous fire from the troops. Thus, they said, they were forced to leave Martin in a safe place and retreat without him.
In the statement, the Melito Glor Command laid the blame on the Arroyo administration for its continuing military operations, especially in Southern Tagalog. It also extended its condolences to Nenita Martin, Martin’s widow, and expressed it’s sadness that this would happen to Martin whom they had taken care of for over a year. It has been reported that Martin’s cataracts had even been operated on while he was in custody.
The Melito Glor Command captured Martin on November 3, 1999, in a daring raid of the Dolores police station, which he ran, near the foot of Mount Banahaw. The NPA said it captured Martin because, as police chief, he was among the main implementors of the government’s counter-insurgency operations in the area.
Martin’s death occurred at a time when the National Democratic Front and the government were finalizing the resumption of the peace negotiations. The NDF and the Communist Party of the Philippines had, in fact, told government that it was already prepared to release Martin and Maj. Noel Buan, another POW who is still in the hands of the NPA. #
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