Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume IV, Number 6 March 7 - 13, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
Neutralizing
Bayan Muna
The
recent murders of Naujan Vice Mayor and Bayan Muna member Juvy Magsino and Bayan
Muna district coordinator Leyma Fortu tend to confirm charges that the Macapagal-Arroyo
government has a policy of “neutralizing” Bayan Muna and its members,
particularly in the island of Mindoro where 20 of the 37 Bayan Muna members
killed were from. It proves, says the militant Party-list group, that Mindoro is
being used as a laboratory for counter-insurgency by the military. BY
DABET CASTAÑEDA
He
specifically pointed out the article titled, “Implications of Bayan Muna in
the AFP Internal Security Operations,” written by Lt. Col. John S. Bonafos,
PA, which was published as a front page material by Ang Tala, the
official publication of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in its first
quarter issue last year. The
article alleged that it was the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)
that created Bayan Muna and that its provincial and municipal chapters are being
converted into local communist chapters. It also said Bayan Muna representatives
are submitting legislations that promote the Communist Party of the
Philippines’ program and that congressional funds are being used for the
underground organizations’ projects. This
article was the subject of an executive meeting between Bayan Muna and Bonafos,
the author. The author supposedly told Ocampo that the information stated in the
article was based on intelligence reports. “That’s
unacceptable,” said Ocampo. “His paper has no credibility.
But if they posted this as a lead article of their publication, it means
they are endorsing it.” The paper in
practice
The
pattern by which Bayan Muna members have been executed in Mindoro Oriental shows
that the assertions of the Bonafos article are indeed accurate and reflects AFP
policy. As
a recommendation, the paper said that “SOT operations should include the
identification and neutralization of Bayan Muna members in the barangay
(village).” The
neutralization effort in Mindoro, as events have shown, includes the execution
of its members. Twenty of them have been killed in Mindoro Oriental including
the Albarillo couple in April 2002 and the Albano family in the town of San
Teodoro in May 2002.
The
paper also recommends that an information campaign about the alleged real motive
of Bayan Muna should be exposed. Black propanganda materials are being distributed in Mindoro by two hitherto unknown groups: the Integrated Mindoro People Against Communist Terrorist (IMPACT) and Mindoro Laban sa Karahasan (Mindoro Against Violance) or MILABAN KA. In addition, propaganda materials distributed on May 10, 2002 by the 6th Special Action Forces Company elements themselves called to “Suppress and drive out of Mindoro the criminal communist NPA/NDF and their pseudo-legal organizations Bayan Muna, Karapatan-MO, Anakbayan and Gabriela which are fronts of real terrorists and killers in our province…” The
material also said “Kill and punish all NPA and their supporters who sow
terror and violence.” Libel
The
death of Naujan Vice Mayor Juvy Magsino, a member of Bayan muna-Mindoro
Oriental, is now a subject of a libel case filed by Col. Fernando Mesa,
commanding officer of the 204th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine
Army (IBPA), against Irein Cuasay, Karapatan-Southern Tagalog’s spokesperson
and a good friend of Magsino. The
libel case was based on a speech delivered by Cuasay at the necrological rites
for Magsino last Feb 21, at the gym in Naujan town, Mindoro Oriental.
Cuasay directly attributed the killings to Mesa whom she said was the
mastermind. Cuasay also charged that Mesa conspired with Naujan town mayor
Norberto Mendoza and his nephew, Lt. Jovy Carmen dela Fuente who is also under
the 204th IBPA. To
prove her claim, Cuasay said that Magsino communicated with her via text message
on Feb. 12, the day before Magsino was murdered, to tell her that Magsino had
received death threats, saying she would not live beyond Feb. 15. In the same text message, Magsino told her that Mesa, Mendoza
and dela Fuente are to be blamed if something should happen to her.
Magsino,
a vocal critique of the militarization of Mindoro, was permanently silenced on
Feb. 13 in Barcenaga, Naujan town. She,
together with Fortu, was ambushed by motorcycle-riding men believed to part of
the military death squad.
Death squad
In
a statement issued last Feb. 17, Bayan Muna-Mindoro Oriental revealed that
Magsino and Fortu were killed by a death squad composed of rebel returnees which
included Aniano Flores, Larry Aparato and Rishard Falla.
It
further stated that a certain Maximo Evora, head of the Governor’s Special
Action Group (GSAG), and a certain Jovy dela Fuente were the ones who led the
surveillance operation on Magsino when she was alive.
The death squad, the statement added, is supposedly under the supervision
of the 204th IBPA which was then under Col. Jovito Palparan. Palparan headed the seven-battalion strong military
contingent under Task Force Banahaw in 2001.
He headed the military operation plan Habol Tamaraw, an anti-insurgency
campaign, which placed Mindoro as a “national priority concern” in
neutralizing the revolutionary force of the CPP/NPA. He
was relieved from his post after he was implicated in the murders of Eden
Marcellana, secretary general of Karapatan Southern Tagalog, and Eddie Gumanoy,
president of the peasant group Kasama-TK, who were abducted in Naujan and were
found dead in Bansud, Mindoro Oriental on April 22, 2003.
Palparan was replaced by Colonel Mesa.
In her own words
A
year before her killing, Magsino was interviewed by the multi-media group
Southern Tagalog Exposure (STEx) regarding the human rights situation in Mindoro
Oriental. In
her own words, Magsino said “I am disillusioned, I am disappointed, I am
frustrated with the position of the provincial government.”
The provincial government is headed by Gov. Bart Marasigan who, together
with Mayor Mendoza, spoke at a Senate hearing in May 2003. They denied that human rights violations are occurring in the
province despite the Garcellana-Gumanoy double murder case.
“The
people are quiet because they are afraid,” said Magsino in the STEx interview.
“Maybe that was what they meant when they said there is peace in our
province.” Magsino
added that the local officials from the governor to the mayors and the town
councilors did not take any action in resolving the human rights cases in the
province. Under
the Arroyo administration, the regional chapter of Karapatan has documented at
least 38 persons killed in Mindoro Oriental alone, 22 of them members of Bayan
Muna. Four of the persons killed
were found beheaded. As of last
count, in 353 cases of human rights violations, there are 1,274 individual
victims belonging to 595 families. Until
today, no one has been made accountable for these violations although human
rights groups said the main perpetrators are elements of the 204th
IBPA and its death squad. In
the STEx interview, Magsino enumerated several threats to her life. “I
am frightened because at the very start I was threatened, though not directly,
by Colonel Palparan,” she said. The
military officer supposedly told her “I’ll be watching you” in response to
her stand against the presence of the military in their province. “I
am followed by unidentified men wherever I go,” she added. She
said that a certain M/Sgt. Hilario personally campaigned against her and told
the residents not to vote for her because she was subversive. In
newspapers, she was branded by the military as an NPA (New People’s Army, the
armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines). “My
dialogues with students were presumed by my detractors as going against the
military. These are just some of
the psy-war (psychological warfare) and harassment I have received.
I will not be surprised if I am part of what they call an OB (order of
battle),” Magsino said in the STEx interview.
Greatest threat
The
neutralization, whether political or physical, of Bayan Muna and its members
should be attributed mainly to the fact that traditional politicians want to
preserve the status quo. “They
try to attract the Left to participate in mainstream politics but if we do, we
are marginalized,” said Ocampo. “We
are defying the threats to the lives of our members,” Ocampo said. “Although
we don’t want to be sacrificing lives as we value the lives of our 37 members
who have been killed, we will not let their deaths go to waste.
We will continue our advocacy for political change.” Ocampo’s words echo Magsino’s when she repeatedly said during the interview: “The greatest threat to a society is not the reign of evil men and women but the silence of good men and women.” Bulatlat.com
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