Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Issue No. 21                        July 8-14,  2001                    Quezon City, Philippines

Arroyo Troops Continue Reign Of Terror In Southern Mindanao

Two more members of the leading party-list group Bayan Muna were killed, bringing to 15 the number of its members or officials killed since the group made public its intention to take part in the May 2001 elections. Camenia Abatan and Roberto Nepa, auditor and vice-chairman of Bayan Muna’s Talaingod chapter in Davao del Norte province in Mindanao, were killed in the first week of July allegedly by troops of the Philippine Army. Their deaths are only among the recent in the course of the government’s unceasing “counter-insurgency” war in the countryside.

BY CARLOS H. CONDE
Bulatlat.com

DAVAO CITY – The dog, according to witnesses, just wouldn’t stop howling. It was brought by Imelda Abatan and nine other people, mostly neighbors and relatives, to the house of Datu Nalusin Baybiran because soldiers from the 72^nd Infantry Battalion had camped there a few days earlier. It made sense to look for Camenia Abatan, Imelda’s husband who had been missing for almost a week, in areas where the soldiers had been. In Davao del Norte and the rest of the Davao provinces, where the presence of the military and all its attendant nightmares is pervasive, it is common for troops hunting for New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas to leave a trail of blood, oftentimes those of civilians. The days starting June 18 up to early July were no exception.

Something near the house of Datu Baybiran in sitio Inaloy, barangay (village) Dagohoy, Talaingod, had so disturbed the dog. It was a spine-tingling howl, witnesses later related to members of the fact-finding mission that trooped to Talaingod, Davao del Norte, on July 3. The howling directed Imelda and the others to a mound of soil barely covered by the disturbed foliage. When they cleared the leaves and the grass, they saw two pieces of wood jutting from the ground. One of the men removed the wood and the soil gave way, exposing a foot that could only be a human being’s. Imelda’s worst fear had come true: the man in the grave was her husband Camenia. He was still wearing his native clothes and bag.

The corpse was already decomposing, its stench overpowering. But the signs of torture, according to the witnesses, were still visible. The fact-finding mission later established that Abatan had been wounded on the right rib and cheek. His body had bruises all over it. His skin looked as though it had been singed.

A few feet away from the grave, Imelda and the others saw thick abaca twines tied to two gemelina trees. It looked like Abatan had been tied to the trees; God knows what his killers had done to him there.

Abatan, age unknown (most Lumads do not know their age), was a farmer and a resident of Km. 31, in Talaingod. He was the auditor of the party-list group Bayan Muna in that hinterland town some 80 kilometers north of this city. His death was just one of the many atrocities the Ata-Manobos and the fact-finding mission had ascribed to the military’s 72^nd Infantry Battalion, one of the most dreaded Army units in Southern Mindanao.

Before he disappeared on June 26, Abatan had been frantic because the military operations in Talaingod had spread to many villages, including Inalay and Malabagtok, where his mother-in-law was residing. Worried abut her safety, Abatan left for Malabagtok around 7 a.m. of June 26. That was the last time Imelda saw her husband alive.

No witnesses have come out so far in the murder of Abatan. But the fact-finding mission as well as Imelda and their relatives are convinced that the soldiers were the ones who tortured and killed Abatan. The soldiers, according to the fact-finding mission, had turned the house of Datu Baybiran into a veritable camp for days. They even burned it down before leaving.

Beng Hernandez, deputy-secretary general of Karapatan, the lead group of the fact-finding mission, said that Abatan’s death was not accidental nor isolated. “It was part of a plot by the military to go after officials and members of Bayan Muna. This is consistent with the military’s pronouncement after the election that it would go hard on the Left, including Bayan Muna. They cannot seem to accept the fact that Bayan Muna dominated the party-list elections,” Hernandez said.

True enough, another Bayan Muna leader, Roberto Nepa, a motorcycle driver from barangay Sto. Nino in Talaingod and vice-chairman of Bayan Muna in that town, was also killed at around the same time the troops were terrorizing the villages of Davao del Norte. According to the fact-finding mission, Nepa was last seen alive drinking with a group of people who were known informants of the military. “Prior to his death, the military and the local police (told) Nepa to leave Sto. Niño because he was included in the military’s order of battle,” the mission said in a report.

Fifteen Killed

The death of Nepa and Abatan brought to 15 the number of Bayan Muna members or officials killed since the group made public its intention to take part in the May 2001 elections. Last week, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) declared that the murders have “poisoned” the climate of the rocky peace negotiations between the NDFP and the government.

Aside from this anti-Bayan Muna backlash, the deaths of Abatan and Nepa occurred in the context of the intensifying militarization of Southern Mindanao, where big business interests have been present for decades. Talaingod, for example, is home to tree plantations owned by C. Alcantara and Sons, a major plywood manufacturer. The Alcantaras are close to the powers-that-be; an in-law, Paul Dominguez, is Arroyo’s adviser on regional development and is a trusted adviser to Renato de Villa, the former executive secretary to Arroyo and former defense chief.

Tens of thousands of hectares of ancestral domain were eaten up by the plantation under an Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) issued by the government, thus displacing the Ata-Manobos in the area. Not surprisingly, the Ata-Manobos have been struggling against the company, even declaring a pangayaw (war of vengeance) in the mid-1990s against the military and the company. At that time, the militarization was so bad that thousands of Ata-Manobos were forced to evacuate to Davao City.

The firm has been reportedly using the military as its own security force, and even groomed a former employee, Jose Libayao, to become Talaingod mayor, using him to protect the company’s interests. Libayao, who is also a Lumad, is the classic big-business stooge who is being used by Alsons in its divide-and-rule strategy in Talaingod. (Libayao’s wife is the present mayor.)

Heavily Militarized Areas

Davao del Norte and the resource-rich provinces of Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley are quite possibly among the most heavily militarized areas in Mindanao, if not the whole country. Early this year, the residents of Spur Dos in Davao Oriental were subjected to days of aerial bombings and physical torture by Army soldiers who were supposedly out to hunt down NPA guerrillas. A food blockade was imposed while some residents were used as guides to track down the guerrillas, thus exposing them to extreme danger. Houses were also ransacked and looted, while crops were destroyed. Also in Davao Oriental last year, two men were forcibly circumcised by soldiers during a military operation.

In Compostela Valley, suspected NPA guerrillas end up in shallow graves after being arrested by the military. The most celebrated was the case of NPA leader Godofredo Guimbaolibot who was arrested in 1999 but was found dead by a roadside in Mawab town a few hours after the arrest. One other NPA guerrilla and two civilians were summarily executed with Guimbaolibot. A few months later, Guimbaolibot’s son, also a suspected NPA guerrilla, turned up in a shallow grave, his hands tied behind his back, apparently tortured.

Apparently, the military’s policy in Southern Mindanao is to take no prisoners–unless the prisoner has propaganda value, as in the case of Leoncio Pitao, also-known-as Ka Parago, the highest-ranking NPA leader currently in the hands of the military. He was arrested more than a year ago in a hinterland part of this city. The military also would take as prisoners children whom they would tag as child combatants, parading them in front of the cameras and using them to score propaganda points against the NPA.

Same Type

Considering the history of military abuses in Southern Mindanao, it was hardly a surprise that the 72^nd IB launched essentially the same type of operation a few days before Abatan and Nepa were killed.

According to the fact-finding mission, 72^nd IB troops started harassing residents on June 18. In barangay Dagohoy, the troops chanced upon Panchovan Talua and one Lumad named Bolingot. When he saw the troops, Bolingot supposedly ran away, out of fear. The troops, of course, were convinced that the only ones who would run away from soldiers are guerrillas. So they arrested Talua and, at gunpoint, forced him to squat in the middle of a creek where he was interrogated and repeatedly accused of being an NPA guerrilla.

Balodoy Danglog, a resident of Mibolo, was also nabbed and accused of being an NPA. The troops tied his hands behind his back then took turns punching him in the stomach, forcing him to admit that he was a guerrilla. Danglog denied that he was a guerrilla and was later released but prevented from proceeding to his destination in another barangay.

Bajas Komongan, a woodcutter, was accosted by the soldiers, who snarled at him, “Do you want to be buried in mud?”

On June 24, soldiers were patrolling sitio Nasilaban in barangay Palma Gil, also in Talaingod, when they nabbed residents Poldo Malorag and Dionat Maas, both Ata-Manobo. They were coerced into guiding the troops in their anti-NPA operation. While in sitio Santotan, barangay Dagohoy, the group was ambushed by the NPA. Some of the soldiers were killed while Malorag managed to jump off a cliff and escape. He wandered in the woods for two days.

In the next two days, three military helicopters strafed the farmlands of barangays Dagohoy and Palma Gil, destroying the Lumads’ crops. If not strafing the farmlands, the helicopters would just hover above the villages, terrorizing the Lumad villagers.

The military has denied that it terrorized the villagers of Talaingod and murdered Abatan and Nepa. Col. Constante Pante, commanding officer of the 72^nd IB, has issued a statement saying that the operation in Talaingod was a legitimate operation against the NPA.

He said he would be happy if the Commission on Human Rights will investigate the allegations. This way, he said, “the good name of the 72^nd IB” will be cleared. Pante believed that all these allegations are being aired by people “sympathetic” to the NPA.

Continued Militarization

Meanwhile, the human-rights group Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) has bewailed the continued militarization in the countryside. Dani Beltran, EMJP secrtary-general, said that while Joseph Estrada, “the godfather of Oplan Makabayan” (the military’s main counter-insurgency program), has been ousted, “the claws of his dreaded counter-insurgency program remain in the neck of every peasant in the countryside.”

Nothing, he added, “has really changed in the countryside. People remain restless and fleeing even in the deepest of the night from the wayward strike operations and indiscriminate firing by government troops. The mere presence of military, police, and paramilitary units terrorize local folks.”

In a May 2001 report by the EMJP, Beltran said the Arroyo administration, in its first 100 days, “has committed at least 80 violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.” These violations include political assassination, summary execution, massacre, forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, illegal detention, torture, indiscriminate firing, harassment, destruction and divestment of properties, physical assault, forced evacuation and food blockade.

“With the ever-intensifying militarization and restlessness in the countryside, there is no sign that the violations of human rights and international humanitarian law will abate despite Arroyo’s rhetoric of ‘healing process’ and peace,” Beltran said. Bulatlat.com

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