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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to
search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts
Vol. V, No. 33
September 25 - October 1, 2005 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Seeing the
Philippines through the Eyes of the Poor
My time in
the Philippines
has helped me to understand more clearly what it means to take up the
cross, to see the world through the eyes of poor and oppressed peoples and
to stand in solidarity with them, as they bear their cross – as they
endure unjust sufferings inflicted on them by the mighty ones. We must
struggle with all we've got, that the victory of the cross may be made a
reality in their lives.
By
Barry Naylor
Urban Canon, Diocese of Leicester
Posted by Bulatlat
Villagers converge
at Cancaiyas School
in Basey, Eastern Samar
to meet
ISM Team
despite military presence.
My
interest in the Philippines arose out of an encounter I had with a young
Filipino Christian who spent some time at Leicester Cathedral, as a result
of the CMS E2E programme. He told me stories of repression and abuse
taking place in his homeland, of which I was totally unaware. I followed
this up by visiting various websites to learn more (notably
www.bulatlat.com and the website of the Daily Inquirer –
www.inq7.net ). I developed a contact with the National Council of
Churches in the Philippines in particular with Ms Sharon Rose Ruiz-Duremdes,
the General Secretary. In the spring of 2005 I helped organise, and host,
a visit to the UK by Ms. Ruiz-Duremdes. This strengthened my relationship
with the NCCP and I was asked if I would attend two events taking place in
the Philippines in August 2005. I was facilitated in this by a grant from
the USPG.
General Ver
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The
first of these was an International Solidarity Mission in defence of a
people fighting repression. This was organised by several organisations
including the human rights group, KARAPATAN, and the Promotion of Church
People’s Response (PCPR). Eighty six delegates from sixteen countries
comprised this fact-finding mission. We split into groups and visited
different areas of the Philippines – Tarlac (Hacienda Luisita), Mindoro,
Samar and Surigao. We were unable to visit the Moro areas in southern
Philippines because of security problems.
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The team
I was with visited Samar in Eastern Visayas. We were hosted by local human
rights organisations, Churches and people’s organisations. We had to be
particularly aware of security at all times and some of the local people
who were with us told of the local military’s “order of battle”, published
quite openly, on which one was “Number 4” and the other “Number 6”. We
listened to many testimonies from witnesses and victims of human rights
abuses, all alleging involvement of the forces of “law and order”. In
Samar, between February and August this year, there have been over 35
killings and 513 cases of human rights abuses. Since the appointment of
Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan as local military commander there have been
three cases of human rights abuses reported every single day, in this
region alone. As reported by the press, he told a meeting of local
barangay leaders: “For every soldier killed, ten civilians will be killed
in their place.” This is the man who led the Filipino contingent in Iraq
and, rather than being disciplined, has twice been promoted in recent
months – thus illustrating collusion at the very highest levels of
government in this institutionalisation of terror. The military cover up
their abuses with lies and dis-information – after a radio interview I
did, a colonel was asked for his response. He told the listeners that my
views could be totally disregarded because he had concrete evidence that
I, and my colleagues, were funded by Osama Bin Laden and the Abu Sayyaf
terrorists in Mindanao.
General
Ver, of the 801st Brigade and 63rd Infantry
Battalion, assured us one day that whenever his troops were on duty they
had to wear uniform, so they could easily be identified. But the very next
day we encountered and were harassed by troops on duty in the countryside,
armed to the teeth but wearing T-shirts with no identification.
ISM Team reflecting on testimonies heard at Cancaiyas |
On this
same day, as we met a group of peasants at Barangay (village) Cancaiyas,
who had come from neighbouring villages. They told of homes burnt,
livelihoods lost and relatives injured during forced mass evacuations by
the military. During this meeting soldiers infiltrated the meeting and
took photos of all those present. We were concerned about what might
happen to the villagers after we left but were assured that they knew
exactly the risks they were taking. They were willing to take the risks,
so they could tell their stories, that the rest of the world might know
and do something to remedy the injustice under which they toiled.
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We heard
evidences of extra-judicial killings – of striking workers at the Hacienda
Luisita last November, of the massacre of the Padiwan family in Mindanao
in February, of human rights workers, civil rights lawyers, priests and
ministers, of journalists, as well as ordinary working people being
killed. We met weeping widows and distraught children, and their number is
added to, week by week. The list would go on and on. Upon my return to the
UK, I learned that Norman Bocar, a human rights lawyer was shot in the
back of the head by a man on a motorcycle. Bocar’s execution was similar
to the killing of Atty. Federico Dacut, a few weeks earlier. Since my
return the Rev. Raul Domingo has died, as a result of gunshot wounds
sustained during the time I was in the Philippines. He was the third
minister murdered this year – after William Tadena of the Iglesia Filipina
Independiente and Edison Lapuz of the UCCP. William Caparro, another
priest and his wife were seriously wounded shot but, fortunately,
survived. The IFI, the second largest Church in the Philippines,
is identified by the military as an “enemy of the state” because of its
strong commitment to working with the poorest sections of Filipino society
and helping workers to organise. All the priests shot were working
alongside poor and marginalised peoples.
We heard
instances of torture - like Constantio Calubid from Samar. His 14-year-old
son Julius described how he tried, courageously, but unsuccessfully, to
prevent the soldiers from dragging his father from their family home and
abducting him. Constantio’s lifeless body was found a few weeks later with
his toe nails removed and bearing several knife wounds and contusions.
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A
farm village cleared of inhabitants by military force |
We were
taken to an apartment in a downtown street of Catbalogan City, by a victim
of torture, Pablo Dacutanan, who in an affidavit had sworn that he had
been tortured there and that the military used it regularly to intimidate
people.
We met a
young man, Elvis Basada, imprisoned in Calbiga, who claimed he was
abducted and tortured by the military. He was forced into a jail, which
was more like a medieval dungeon, and was charged with murder and
banditry. In Calbiga, the local Catholic priest had been forced out of the
parish by threats to his life from the military
We also
heard of forced disappearances, forced confessions, forced displacement of
communities especially in areas where foreign companies planned to pursue
mining or mineral extraction; in Mindanao alone – 78,000 people have been
displaced. We heard of violence against women and children – of a
ten-year-old boy beaten up by the military because they said he would just
grow up into another New People’s Army (NPA) rebel. Then he was made to
dig his own grave with his bare hands and was kicked into it, before the
soldiers stopped their torture.
Julius Calubid beside his mother testifies about his father’s
abduction and killing |
At the
end of the ISM, an International people’s Tribunal was held in Manila.
This was presided over by three international figures of high repute –
Lennox Hinds (USA), Professor of Law at Rutgers University; Irene
Fernandez (Malaysia), nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; and Hakan
Karakus (Turkey), President of the International Association of People’s
Lawyers. The Tribunal heard evidence from several victims of torture and
abuse. We heard of the systematic persecution of people and their
representatives from many areas of the country. Evidence was also
presented by the different groups of the ISM of human rights abuses they
had documented.
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During
the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (January 21st 2001 –
June 30th 2005), KARAPATAN has documented 4,207 cases of human
rights abuses involving 232,796 victims – the number is now even bigger.
What linked all these stories was the actual, or the suspected,
involvement of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) or the PNP
(Philippines National Police). When I questioned General Ver about why no
one had been brought to justice for these crimes, he said that it was the
responsibility of the police. When witnesses spoke to us of going to the
police to complain of abuses by the military, they said they were told by
the police that is was not their responsibility, but that of the military.
At the
Tribunal, I was invited to chair the International College of Jurors.
After considering the evidence, I announced the verdict that we found the
defendants Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and George Bush, et al, guilty of human
rights violations. In one media report it was announced that at this
moment “the thousand-strong audience, many of them farmers and indigenous
peoples from the provinces gripped by militarization and a `reign of
terror` instantaneously stood up and applauded with shouts of jubilation
and tears - - -”
The suspected torture house in Catbalogan, Eastern Visayas |
This
was followed by a torchlight procession at which I was approached by a
group of young seminarians, amazed that a priest from the Church of
England should be expressing such solidarity with the repressed people of
their land. They did not think the English Church was much concerned about
their plight – what a sad perception! This perception was, however, borne
out by other conversations I had, when requests for expressions of
international solidarity from other churches had been so tardily responded
to by Churches over here, in comparison to generous and immediate
responses from other lands.
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After
the ISM, I joined a group of Muslims and Christians to attend a conference
in General Santos City, Mindanao in the southern Philippines. This was
organised by the NCCP and the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance. The aim of
the conference was “Bridging gaps, breaking religious barriers and
strengthening Muslim-Christian solidarity and unity”.
I spent
the first day and night in the small Muslim barangay of Waan, near Davao.
I stayed with a family in their home – a very poor but a hospitable
family. Their young daughter was about to finish high school and wanted to
go to college but here was no way they could afford the fees; she was
therefore, filling in the papers to become an overseas Foreign Worker in
Kuwait, driven out of her homeland, and away from her family, by poverty.
We were welcomed by an Islamic Women’s organisation KHADIDJA. In this
village we heard further stories of abuse – one told by a woman whose
husband had gone to work, as usual. In a military raid in the area, he was
seen being dragged by a group of men into a white van. He has not been
seen since. This lady asked: “What can you do for me?” We felt helpless
but said the one thing we could do was to ensure that all the stories we
had heard did, indeed, get publicised throughout the world.
Elvis Basada in his prison cell in Calbiga |
We heard
of brutal and vindictive Islamophobic attacks – increasing in intensity
after Bush declared “War on Terror”, following 9/11. We were told of an
unprecedented campaign against the Bangsomoro Muslim people not only in
Mindanao and Sulu but also in the country’s capital city, Manila. We heard
stories that in Manila women wearing the hijab were often refused
taxi rides. We heard of foreign Muslims, particularly Arabs, being
arrested and detained on trumped-up charges. One speaker, Robert Muhammad
Maulana Alonto, described how American teachers are now being encouraged
to go into local madaris in Mindanao to teach English and to
promote a “culture of peace”. The speaker’s impassioned response was: “It
defies imagination to think that those who deprive us of our freedom, bomb
our villages, burn our homes, destroy our mosques, kill our innocent
people, starve our children in refugee camps, jail our youths, label our
Islamic faith as ‘terrorist ideology’ and have consigned our Moro nation
to perpetual poverty and mendicancy would be preaching this so called
‘culture of peace’”.
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During
my time in the Philippines, I encountered a remarkable hospitality and
warmth, a deep appreciation of international concern. I met people
radiating joy and truly able to celebrate life. I also encountered real
darkness, as I had never encountered before, a pervading sense of fear and
terror and many, many examples of injustice, and individuals and
communities deeply wounded and oppressed.
The Chair of the Jury reads the Guilty
Verdict
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All
these take place in a country claiming to be a democracy but in which, so
frequently, the military abuses its role and overrides civil authority. An
opposition congressman, Joel Virador, told us “a culture of open terror
has been institutionalized”. The government colludes in the oppression of
thousands upon thousands of its own citizens. One way it is perceived as
doing this, is by close association with Bush’s “War on Terror” – widely
interpreted by so many I heard (bishops, priests, religious, lawyers,
academics, politicians) not as a “War on Terror” but as a “War of
Terror” - a war waged against legitimate people’s movements, to
further the aim of establishing global hegemony. It is also described by
the General Secretary of the NCCP as “the lustful greed for world
domination”. In her final address at the Muslim Christian Solidarity
Conference, she said she totally failed to understand how any
Bible-believing Christian could support the “War on Terror”, as defined by
the powerful. She proceeded to say, “it is very clear that the War on
Terror is essentially an ideological construct designed to justify the
American projection of power and military dominance required to maintain
the current global disparity of resource control and consumption.” She
quoted George Kennan, of the U.S. State Department, who commented that any
talk of human rights and / or civil liberties is nothing but
“sentimentality and day-dreaming - vague and unreal objectives”.
Carmencita Karadag, the Coordinator of Peace for Life, said that so often
it seems the root causes, that find expression in violent acts, are
completely ignored - she listed “abject poverty and disease, massive
dispossession, denial of sovereignty cultural and economic dislocation,
widespread abuse of power – all largely attributable to corporate, and now
increasingly militarized, globalization and the relentless drive for
global hegemony and power” .Prof. Maake Masanga, of the University of
Pretoria, ended a scholarly and moving address with the story of the
Emperor’s new clothes: “We need to tell this Emperor he is naked and we
should not participate in being caught in the trap of lies”. It was lies
that crucified our Lord on Calvary and it is lies and darkness that
continue to crucify his people today.
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Dance and gong performance by people of the Cordillera |
Ms.
Ruiz-Duremdes concluded the conference in Mindanao in these words: “The
bishops, the ustadjes, the Roman catholic sisters and priests,
pastors, church institution workers, Muslim and Christian activists and
the guests from overseas, now turned partners and friends, linked arms and
held each other in even tighter embrace to cement the commitment to dispel
the dark forces of evil wrought by the lustful greed for global domination
and to relentlessly struggle for the coming of that day when that
friendlier tomorrow shall dawn and smile upon the peoples of the world”.
My time
in the Philippines has helped me to understand more clearly what it means
to take up the cross, to see the world through the eyes of poor and
oppressed peoples and to stand in solidarity with them, as they bear their
cross – as they endure unjust sufferings inflicted on them by the mighty
ones. Their tears must be our tears, their suffering must be our
suffering, we must feel the pain inflicted by the torturers, the
destroyers of their communities and, in international solidarity, we must
struggle with all we’ve got, that the victory of the cross may be made a
reality in their lives, assisted by our loving and efficacious support and
prayers. Pray God that the victory comes sooner, rather than later. As we
take up the cross and share in the pain of the struggle so may we also,
one day, share in the joy of the victory. Posted by Bulatlat
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