Compostela Mayor’s Killing Spotlights Top Gov’t Officials

The killing of Monkayo mayor Joel Brillantes has once again put the Diwalwal gold-rush site on the spotlight. The mayor had many enemies and the NPA had given a “partial list” of his alleged sins. Meantime, the military has reportedly unleashed its might in Diwalwal, supposedly against the NPA but more likely, the guerrillas said, to consolidate the Arroyo regime’s hold of the gold-rich area.

By DAISY C. GONZALES
Bulatlat.com Mindanao Bureau

DAVAO CITY — “We live only once in this world but before we leave this world we have to leave a legacy.”  These were said to be the words, contained in a text message to a lawyer-friend, by Joel Brillantes, the mayor of Monkayo town in Compostela Valley province, Southern Mindanao region. On June 28, he was shot dead inside the Matina Gallera where a P2-million cock derby money was being held. 

In necrological rites on July 3 complete with a 21 gun-salute, Brillantes, 48, a former intelligence officer in the military, was laid to rest at the Davao Memorial Park in this city. He was eulogized by friends and relatives as a “hero.” 

Brillantes’s life and legacy, however, will inevitably be gleaned through the prism of the conflict in Mount Diwata, also called Diwalwal, within his town.

Some of his townmates hailed him as an “environmentalist.” For many others, he was the enemy. He was constantly hounded with protest actions from small-scale miners, his rivals in the mining trade. Even the New People’s Army (NPA) operating in the area had no love lost for him. Consequently, Brillantes had been seen wearing a Kevlar helmet and a bullet-proof vest.

“Brillantes deserved such a consequence for his criminal, murderous, and treacherous acts,” said Rigoberto F. Sanchez, spokesperson of the Merardo Arce Command of the NPA in the region, in a statement two days after the killing.

The NPA, however, did not own up to the killing. “There are several plausible players eager to mete out that punishment,” Sanchez said in a statement. This is due, he said, to the “exceedingly acrimonious mining underworld of Diwalwal” and to his “complicity in big-time drug trading.”

Brillantes had been a first-term mayor of Monkayo, where the contested gold-rush site is found. He also owned the JB Marketing and Management Corporation (JBMMC) that controls big gold tunnels in Diwalwal.  The company also has a tie-up with Southeast Mindanao Gold Mining Corp (SEM), which is said to be owned by foreigners and Picop Resources Inc., once the largest paper mill in Asia.

‘Not surprising’

The death of Brillantes does not come as a surprise to the NPA and the masses, said Sanchez.  The mayor was described in the statement as a “notorious criminal deserving punishment.”

Brillantes’s “partial” list of “crimes,” as disclosed by Sanchez, are allegedly as follows:

• The “forcible and armed takeover” of mine tunnels and plants “owned” by small- and medium-scale miners;

• The “faked ambush” of a dump truck “owned” by JBMMC-SEM that injured six miners and killing a child in August 2002;

• In January 24 and July-August 2002, the gas poisoning of tunnels that injured seven and 95 mine workers, respectively. In that August poisoning incident, mine worker Roberto Zamora was killed;

• In February 2000, the gas poisoning of tunnels that resulted in the deaths of  miners Jun Digal, Jerry Basino, Oliver Basino, Braulio Agad, Neto Resuto, and Vicente Tagura;

• On March 18, 1999, the ambush of a dump truck, killing mine workers Ricardo Berame, Ondoy Lacia and Ferdinand Gallardo;

• On July 25, 1999, the murder of Diwalwal Purok Chairman Frank Ebo; and

• Brillantes was also one of those indicted in the “revolutionary people’s court” in connection with the Mawab 4 Massacre in August 1999 in which two NPA guerrillas and two civilians were arrested, tortured and murdered.

Sanchez said in the statement that “it is clear from this list of atrocious crimes that death merely recoiled upon Brillantes.”

CIDG takes the lead

Eduardo Matillano, chief of the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) based in Manila, flew to this city to take the lead in the investigation of the murder. “This is a high profile crime” that requires “a high profile investigation,” Matillano was quoted by MindaNews as saying.

When Matillano was still the regional director of the PNP in Southern Mindanao, he was accused by Brillantes’s rivals and the small-scale miners of favoring the mayor.

In the NPA’s statement, Matillano was described as a “willing lapdog” of Brillantes, along with the 701^st Brigade and the 60^th Infantry Battalion that are operating in the area. Through these connections, Sanchez said, Brillantes was “fortified” by the military in his “insatiable interest to take over” the Diwalwal gold-rush site and “cater to the monopolistic interests of Picop/Bernardino,” the statement said. Sanchez was referring to Teodoro Bernardino, the president of Picop.

Brillantes’ victory in the last elections, according to the statement, was “ensured” by the 60^th IB’s “militarization and harassment” in the communities of Monkayo.

New deal

Brillantes, according to Sanchez, had “clinched” a “shady deal” with a group of top government officials.

Before the mayor’s death, Sanchez said, Brillantes “managed to once more outsmart his rivals and the multitudes of small scale miners.” The deal, he said, would give “vast powers to (the top officials) to fatten up (their) campaign coffers for the 2004 elections out of the gold revenues in Diwalwal, and offer the vast mineral resources of Mt. Diwata to American and foreign mining firms.”

After the killing, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo formed the 12-member Task Force Diwalwal headed by Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes. The task force would “make sure that Mt. Diwalwal will be rid of the rebels finally. Our people have suffered for a long time already,” Reyes said.

The NPA, in the statement, warned the “Bernardino-Arroyo-Reyes clique against capitalizing on the death of Brillantes to intensify militarization and vengeful acts against small-scale miners and the revolutionary masses in the furtherance of their monopolistic ends in Diwalwal.”

As of this writing, the military launched military operations in Diwalwal and its adjacent areas.

The military has repeatedly accused the NPA of “extorting” millions of pesos from Diwalwal miners over the years, a claim the NPA has denied.

Three suspects

When Brillantes was killed at about 10:30 p.m. last June 28, the alleged gunman, Anecito Dejito Sr., was shot dead shortly afterward.

Matillano also disclosed to the media that Dejito was promised P1 million as payment for killing Brillantes, although he only received P3,000. The CIDG has likewise identified three suspects in the killing of the mayor.

Nene Brillantes, the widow of the mayor, vows to seek justice for her husband. She believes that the killing of her husband is connected to the mining operations in Diwalwal. Bulatlat.com

Related article: Diwalwal Folk Caught in the Grip of Violence, Greed (First of a series)

Back to top

We want to know what you think of this article.