HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Maco Four Massacre: A Year Passing in Silence

A year has passed since what is now called the Maco Four Massacre, and the case has remained silent. For the family of the victims, the wheel of justice has stopped: no murder case has been filed at the courts. The government's Commission on Human Rights has archived the case. But the families of the victims promise to carry on the fight.

BY TYRONE A. VELEZ
Bulatlat

MACO, Compostela Valley -- Empty. Silent. In the house of slain youth leader Marjorie Reynoso in this town, the mood has been like this for over a year now.

A year after her abduction and death, along with three other youths, the pain and memory have forced Marjorie’s family to move out of their home in barangay (village) Anislagan.  Only her father and three younger brothers in high school remain.

"At first, you can carry on, move on with your life," says Manuel, Marjorie's father, "but in a year's time, it then sinks in, you feel the loneliness.  Even the other parents (of the victims) feel the same."

A year has passed since what is now called the Maco Four Massacre, and the case has remained silent. For the family of the victims, the wheel of justice has stopped: no murder case has been filed at the courts. The government's Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Southern Mindanao recently archived the case because of “lack of substantive witness.”

This is the appalling truth about the heinous killing of these four youths, who were abducted on Sept. 19, 2003, and whose bodies were found four days later, heaped on a shallow pit in a banana plantation in Compostela village in this town.

Marjorie was just 18, a coordinator of the progressive Anak ng Bayan (nation’s youth) partylist and the Sangguniang Kabataan chairperson of the village. Carlito Doydoy, 27, was also an organizer of Anak ng Bayan in Davao del Norte.  Ramon Ragase Jr., 17, and his friend Jonathan Benaro, 17, were just making a living driving motorcycles when they were also abducted.

The first and only witness so far

Weeks passed after rallies condemning the massacre, the press conferences demanding justice, and the funeral march, when finally one witness came out, albeit one month after the murders.

The witness filed a sworn statement and later agreed to help draw the sketch of the youth's abductors at the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group. His testimony convinced the CHR that the four had been abducted.

According to the witness, the killers were on board a Tamaraw FX that tailed the youths, who had been on board Ragase's motorcycle. As they approached a banana plantation in Apokon, Tagum City, the men in the FX intercepted the four, held them at gunpoint, shot the two who attempted to escape, and forced all of them into the vehicle. 

But even with this testimony, the CHR, in August, archived the case. The reason? "No sufficient basis for indicting any person." The CHR said it had no choice but defer the investigation until such time an eyewitness would come out.

Fear

Why the difficulty in coming up with more witnesses?

Coming out is a daunting thing for the witnesses, says Manuel, who has talked with some other witnesses.  The only thing holding the witnesses back is the assurance of their safety and their families' as well, he says. It is not easy: they, Manual says, believe that the perpetrators were government men.

"They are afraid that the officials handling the Witness Protection Program are just in cahoots with the perpetrators. How can you assure their safety?" Manuel asks.

Even then, one witness has been missing for almost a year. According to Manuel, this person could have been the key to the case. Up to now, no one in his community has heard of him since the murders.

Blood in the military's hands

The human rights group Karapatan, which launched its own fact-finding mission after the incident, points to the military intelligence as responsible for the killings. This is grounded on the fact that two of the victims were members of Anak ng Bayan.

According to Karapatan, Marjorie's mother, Gloria, called her daughter’s cellphone on the night she disappeared. A man answered the phone – and laughed, she had said.

Karapatan and Marjorie's parents had reason to believe the perpetrators were members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. After all, aside from the circumstances of the case that points to the military, the massacre occurred at a time when members of progressive groups such as Anak ng Bayan and Bayan Muna (people first) were being harassed, abducted, tortured and murdered with impunity.

Karapatan has filed a human-rights case against the military before the Joint Monitoring Committee, a committee formed by the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines as part of their implementation of an agreement they had earlier signed, the Comprehensive Agreement for Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Laws (CARHRIHL).

Indictment from the NPA

So far, only the New People's Army has come out with its findings on the case. In a statement released to the media last Dec. 10, the NPA's Merardo Arce Command indicted four military officers and three operatives. Among them were Captain Denmark Mamaril, Staff Sergeant Marcial Colot, and 1st Sergeant Roy Telang of the AFP 701st Brigade.

The NPA said these men and agents of the AFP had obtained knowledge, through surveillance, about the victims' movements. It said the suspects had planned the abduction and murders and that they knew exactly who their targets were, as suggested by the fact that, according to the lone eyewitness, Doydoy and Benaro were shot at and forcibly hauled off to the Tamaraw FX after trying to escape.

These suspects, the NPA said, were based at the AFP’s 701st Brigade and the safehouses of the Intelligence Security Unit in Compostela Valley, Agusan del Sur, Davao del Norte, Tagum City and Davao City.

The NPA said the suspects used their safehouse in Trento, Agusan del Sur, "to carry out the cold-blooded massacre after using physical mental and sexual torture against the victims.”

The said the abduction and killing of the victims were "premeditated acts of aggression against civilians" and "were results of counterrevolutionary operations of the AFP."

Justice waiting

A year has passed and the perpetrators are still faceless and nameless in the eyes of the government, particularly the CHR.

But the families believe the perpetrators are just inside the military barracks.  No one could testify against them, either because no one is brave enough to do it or simply because the perpetrators are just good at protecting themselves.

"It is right for us to ask for justice for someone who is murdered. We pray this case would be acted on immediately,” friend of Marjorie's says.

A friend of Ragase says the government has been sitting on the case. "It has been a year. Nothing has happened.  Is it because we are poor, not like the rich ones who can afford justice?"

Manuel is exasperated with the police's ineptitude.  "Last year, they (the CIDG) came to us asking for information of the case.  They should be the one going out there and investigating, not asking us what our children were doing," he says. "They are paid to do their job, but what are they doing?"

The families are determined to carry on the fight.  They still hope that, one day, someone will be brave enough to show them the faces of those responsible for their children's deaths. Bulatlat

Related article:
‘No Regrets Our Daughter was An Activist’    By Tyrone A. Velez

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