Tabara Armed Group: From 'Rebels' to 'Rogues'
Arturo Tabara, who was killed by assassin’s bullets in early September,
was hailed by government authorities as a “man of peace.” As far as the
underground Left and human rights and peace groups in Negros are
concerned, however, Tabara and his group could hardly fit the description.
By
Karl G. Ombion
Bulatlat
BACOLOD CITY
– Denouncing the killing of Arturo Tabara by a unit of the New People’s
Army (NPA) last Sept. 26, government authorities hailed him as a “man of
peace.” But Tabara, erstwhile chief of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng
Masang Pilipino-Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPMP-RPA-ABB),
could have hardly qualified as a “man of peace,” as far as the mainstream
underground Left is concerned.
Human rights
groups and a number of media reports also link the RPMP-RPA-ABB – widely
known here as a special paramilitary unit and not a rebel group that it
claims to be - to big landlords and local politicians engaging in what
would qualify as “criminal activities.”
In a
statement released to the media on Sept. 30, Frank Fernandez, alleged
secretary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in Negros
Island, traced Tabara’s transformation from a rebel to a “rogue.” In
1992-1993, Fernandez said, Tabara and his faction launched a demolition
campaign against the revolutionary movement by agitating members of the
CPP-NPA to bolt out and rise against the CPP’s central committee and the
general command of the NPA.
Tabara, the
Negros revolutionary leader said, had misrepresented the authority of the
CPP’s central leadership in committing kidnap-for-ransom and other
gangster operations in Negros. Most notorious of these is the kidnapping
of Rolando Florete, owner of Bombo Radio Philippines in 1989, and a
Japanese national named Mr. Mizuno in 1990. Both operations, Fernandez
clarified, were against the policy of the CPP.
Mysterious release
In 1993, the
Negros CPP regional committee, then under the Party’s Visayas Commission
headed by Tabara, declared its autonomy from the CPP’s central leadership.
The following year, Tabara along with other members of his faction were
arrested by the Military Intelligence Group under Maj. Pedro Cabuay, in an
apartment in
Bacolod.
Tabara and the others were subsequently released shortly under mysterious
circumstances.
Sometime
between 1997-1998, Tabara and Nilo De La Cruz formed the RPMP with the
latter’s RPA-ABB as its armed unit. (Dela Cruz has reportedly taken over
the leadership following Tabara’s assassination.) Others who had joined
them, like Noel Etabag and a certain Geanga, left the new formation over
alleged racket money, and formed their own party known as Partido ng
Manggagawang Pilipino (PMP).
Since then,
media reports in Negros wrote about joint military operations by the
RPMP-RPA-ABB and military and police against the CPP-NPA particularly in
the hinterland villages of Sipalay-Hinobaan,
Cauayan-Ilog-Candoni-Kabankalan, Isabela-Binalbagan in southern Negros,
Canlaon-Guihulnga-Don Salvador Bendicto in central Negros,
Silay-Talisay-EB Magalona, Cadiz-Sagay-Escalante-Toboso in north Negros,
and Sta.Catalina-Bayawan in Negros Oriental.
Tabara,
Frank Fernandez said, was also tagged as a security adviser of magnate
Eduardo Danding Cojuangco Jr., He, Fernandez went on, was responsible for
the sell-out of RPA-ABB by serving as a private army of Cojuangco in the
latter’s land ownership expansion in the cities of Canlaon, Kabankalan,
Sipalay, Bago and La Carlota, and in the towns of Don Salvador Benedicto
and La Castellana, all in Negros.
In May 2002,
Fernandez said, Tabara and Carapali Lualhati directed RPA-ABB members in
the raid of the municipal treasurer’s office in Sta. Catalina town in
Negros Oriental where they reportedly stashed away P220,000. The RPA-ABB
commandos reportedly killed Lito Dagat, Virgie Edreal, Dondon Dinsay and
another, all employees.
The
RPMP-RPA-ABB was also linked to a dynasty who was reportedly engaged in
illegal logging in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental and, in the
May 2004 elections, was also reported in the press for extortion
activities amassing millions of pesos using the name and logo of the
CPP-NPA-NDFP, Fernandez also said.
Paramilitary unit
In January
2002, then Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita urged President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo to recognize the RPMP-RPA-ABB as a paramilitary unit of
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The proposal, Jerome Seballos,
secretary general of the human rights alliance Karapatan in Negros said,
was backed by Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman.
What gave
the top Macapagal-Arroyo officials certitude in turning Tabara’s armed
group into a counter-insurgency unit can be explained by what some
analysts and media columnists in
Negros
describe as RPMP-RPA-ABB’s outright capitulation and record of criminal
activities.
Only a year
after President Joseph Estrada started negotiations with the Tabara group
in 1999, a peace agreement was struck. On Dec. 6, 2000, Estrada’s
executive secretary, Edgardo Angara (now back as a senator) along with
Cojuangco Jr. as “peace intervenor” signed a peace pact with Tabara and
Dela Cruz in Quezon City.
The peace
pact, political analysts, Karapatan and the moderate group Peace Advocates
of Negros (PAN), here agree, only “revitalized, strengthened and
protected” the otherwise “spent force” RPMP-RPA-ABB.
Among
others, the agreement gave the armed group a special license to carry
firearms (Article II, Sec.2). All charges filed against leaders of the
RPMP-RPA-ABB were subsequently dropped Article III). Government also
pledged to give the armed group a total of P510 million for so-called
development projects (Article IV, Section 4 and Article V, Section 1).
Delia “Duds”
Locsin of PAN dismissed the agreement as not conducive to peace at all as
it grants the “spent rebel force” special permits to carry firearms and
recognizes the force’s control over undefined territories.
Karapatan’s
Seballos gave a harsher comment: The agreement is a proof of the
RPMP-RPA-ABB’s surrender to the government. “It is ironic that they keep
on insisting that they are revolutionaries when in reality and in practice
they have become paramilitary group, a CAFGU, of the government and being
used against the real revolutionaries and the people,” he said.
This also
explains why, Seballos said, members of the armed group could move around
freely with their leaders holding offices in the provincial capitol and in
AFP and police headquarters. “They can harass anybody, anytime, anywhere,
without fear of being arrested, disarmed, and prosecuted. All these make
them real dangerous,” he added.
Assassination plot
It was
during talks with Estrada officials in 2000 that an assassination plot was
hatched against a prime target: Jose Maria Sison, now the chief political
consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)
based in The Netherlands. Based partly on information provided by Col.
Reynaldo Berroya, news reports said Romulo Kintanar, a former NPA
commander who had also parted ways with the revolutionary movement, was
the chief project officer of the assassination plot together with Tabada
and Dela Cruz.
A hit team,
which included an army soldier, went to The Netherlands to conduct
surveillance on Sison in 2000 and the plot was to have been executed in
October that year. But the plan was fouled up by the arrest and detention
of the backup triggerman by the Dutch police. Another team was dispatched
by Kintanar but was pulled out later on.
Under these
circumstances, independent analysts in Negros say, the accusations by
Fernandez along with other groups in Negros that Tabara and his group are
not only a paramilitary unit but also special intelligence agents of the
government hold water.
String of cases
On top of
these, Karapatan-Negros has documented and submitted to the Commission on
Human Rights and Negros officials a string of human rights violations and
criminal activities by the RPMP-RPA-ABB. Some of the cases under
investigation are:
1) Peasants
in the hinterland barangays of Pinggot, Ilog town,and Barangays Kanlamay,
Balikutok, Magballo, Bantayan, Tapi and Agboy of Kabankalan City in
southern Negros, who protested the planned construction of a dam, cassava
and Ilang-Ilang plantations of Cojuangco were harassed in October and
November 2001 by elements of RPA-ABB led by certain Malvar and Saldo;
2) On Nov.
1, 2001, Johnny, 36, and Allan Lapore, 31, and 15-year old Richard
Menquillo, who were looking for a pilit (the glutinous rice used
for native cakes) were fired upon as they passed along the airstrip of
Maricalum Mining Corporation (MMC), Sipalay City, 162 kms south of Bacolod,
by security guards and alleged RPA-ABB elements contracted for protection
work by the MMC;
3) Farmers
in the villages of Malaiba, Akasya and Lumapao, Aquino and Bayog, Canlaon
City, 150 kms east of Bacolod, who opposed the illegal logging operations
by elements of RPA-ABB and rebel returnees financed by local politicians
and lumber companies, were repeatedly harassed in October and November
2001, and threatened of ejection;
3) Alfredo
Sabillo, a farmer leader of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or
Peasant Movement in the Philippines) in Barangay Pinggot, Ilog, who led a
protest against the planned DAM project in the area, and exposed the money
allegedly received by some RPA-ABB from barangay officials, was forced by
elements of RPA-ABB to abandon his residence on Nov. 3, 2001. He was also
warned that he would be shot if he is seen roaming the entire 6th district
(CHICKS area);
4) Also in
2001, Tay Pedring Trabajador, a leader of the National Federation of Sugar
Workers was killed in Barangay San Isidro, Toboso twon, 126 kms north of
Bacolod, by alleged RPA-ABB elements led by a certain Timot and Ricky
together with police and army members;
5) Rape of a
15-year girl of Silay City allegedly by RPA-ABB elements led by Arnold and
Maitan in May 11 2003, in a fishpond in Talisay City. The case was widely
reported in the Negros press;
6) RPA-ABB
members led by Maitan and Kenneth in near north Negros harassed organizers
and campaigners of party-list Gabriela Women’s Party and Bayan Muna in
April 2004, in the interior villages of Silay and Talisay cities, 15kms
north of Bacolod. The same members who were reported campaigning with the
administration mayoralty bets were also complained by local residents of
tearing and removing the posters of progressive party-lists and the
candidates they were endorsing.
7) Ronald
Ian Evidente, Bayan leader of Negros Oriental and third nominee of Anak ng
Bayan Party, was arrested in Dumaguete City on April 21, 2004 by the
police on trumped-up charges of murder filed by the wife of RPA-ABB leader
in Oriental. Evidente was released on bail two weeks later;
8) The house of farmer Mamerto Acsimar in remote village of
Cauayan, 135kms south of Bacolod, was burned by alleged RPA-ABB elements
led by Elmer and Amor on Oct. 2, 2002. Acsimar was then shot by alleged
RPA-ABB members Marvin and Leonardo Trocio. With additional reports /
Bulatlat
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