This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 33, September 25-October 1, 2005
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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 - - -” 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. 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. 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’”. 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. 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. 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 © 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Urban Canon, Diocese of Leicester
Posted by Bulatlat