General Out to Quell Opposition vs GMA’s NorthRail, Expressway Projects?

A peasant congressman from Central Luzon said that the heightened militarization in the region – which is taking place while Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan was designated commander of the 7^th Infantry Division last September – has a hidden agenda: To neutralize the people’s dissent over two priority projects of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat

Is there a relationship between government’s flagship projects and heightened militarization in Central Luzon (CL)?

The designation last September 2005 of military officer Jovito Palparan as division commander of the 7^th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army (ID PA) based in Fort Magsaysay, Laur, Nueva Ecija was meant to quell opposition to two flagship projects of the government, namely the North Luzon Railways Corporation (NorthRail) and the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP), a House party-list representative said. 

In a press conference in Quezon City Oct. 12, Anakpawis (toiling masses) Party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano said that alleged involvement in political killings seems to have become one of the grounds for promotion in the military.

“The immunity granted by Malacañang to Palparan despite charges of human rights violations hurled against him serves as encouragement for the other officers and members of the institution to engage in similar counter-insurgency operations that target civilians and sow fear and terror over civilian populations,” Mariano told reporters.

Palparan, who has been promoted by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from colonel to major general in two years, has been accused of human rights violations. Under investigation earlier by the Commission on Human Rights, the justice department and then Congress, he was linked by rights watchdogs to the killings of activists in the Mindoro province and the Eastern Visayas (EV) region.

Both areas are rich in mineral deposits. During Palparan’s stint in those areas, local organizations there stressed that his designation was part of the government’s plan to dampen the opposition to mining activities there.

As a result of public clamor and widespread accusations against Palparan, the Commission on Appointments (CA) decided to defer the confirmation of his promotion to a two-star general.

Mariano, who traces his peasant origins in Nueva Ecija, said that despite the CA’s decision, Palparan remains a “model general” for beleaguered President Macapagal-Arroyo. Proof of this is his assignment to CL where the general is again expected to “deliver.” For Mariano, the latter word refers to quelling opposition to the President’s pilot projects in the region.

“Sowing fear”

As commander of the 7^th ID, Palparan currently heads two brigades (702^nd and 703^rd) and six battalions (24^th, 48^th, 56^th, 69^th, 70^th, and 71^st) of the PA covering eight provinces in CL. Palparan’s ID is under the Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom).

Since he assumed the military top post in CL, the human rights alliance Karapatan-CL (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights-CL) has documented a total of 23 victims of human rights violations and international humanitarian law. Twelve of these victims have been killed allegedly by the military.

The manner in which the violations have occurred is ruthless and has sown fear among villagers, Karapatan-CL said in its Oct. 12 statement. The group’s fact-finding missions showed that the victims were killed or abducted inside their homes with the incidents witnessed by their own families.

The group’s reports also showed a pattern of how the alleged military perpetrators operate. The perpetrators are said to attack at midnight, the victims are shot several times in the head and body and the victims are left in public places.

“These are done specifically to sow fear among the people,” said Sr. Cecile Ruiz, chair of Karapatan-CL.

Pilot projects

Central Luzon is currently the area for two controversial flagship projects of the government.

The $503-million NorthRail is a railway modernization project and a joint venture of the Philippine and Chinese governments. The project spans from Caloocan City (Metro Manila) through Clark Airbase, Pampanga (CL) to the Subic Freeport Zone in Zambales (CL) with two extensions running from Caloocan City to Fort Bonifacio (Metro Manila) and from Clark heading toward Poro Point in La Union (Northern Luzon). The first phase is a 32-km stretch from Caloocan to Malolos, Bulacan (CL).

The Stop NorthRail Project Coalition (SNPC), one of the project’s opponents, stressed that the contract entered into by the two countries is onerous, one-sided and inimical to Filipinos. A report by the law center of the University of the Philippines also has similar finding. The project is currently under Senate investigation.

The SCTEP, on the other hand, is the sixth in the President’s 10-point agenda. Spearheaded by the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), it is funded by an P18-billion loan ($322.41 million, based on an exchange rate of P55.83 per US dollar) from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

This expressway project passes through the 6,453-ha. Hacienda Luisita property. The latter is the vast sugar estate owned and operated by the family of former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino who belongs to the powerful Cojuangco clan in Tarlac.

According to its website, the BCDA says that the SCTEP is designed to provide the “shortest, direct and efficient link” among areas in Central Luzon, specifically the Subic Bay Special Economic Zone and Freeport Zone in Zambales, the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga and the Luisita Industrial Park in Tarlac.

Opposition

Opposition to the NorthRail project particularly comes from urban poor dwellers along the railways whose homes will be demolished once construction reaches their area. About 20,000 families could lose their homes and livelihood for the project’s first phase alone.

In a statement, the SNPC said blood is bound to spill once the government pursues this project. During a violent demolition last Sept. 21, the group said, the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Provincial Mobile Group (PMG) injured seven urban poor dwellers from the town of Meycauayan. The report said the victims’ heads were hit by crowbars while their arms, chests and legs were hit by the demolition crew’s mallets and hammers.

So far, the project’s construction has torn down around 7,000 homes in the cities of Caloocan, Malabon and Valenzuela in Metro Manila. More families will soon find themselves homeless as Macapagal-Arroyo issued as early as last Nov. 8 Administrative Order (AO) No. 11. The AO authorizes the National Housing Authority (NHA) to take charge of demolitions and forced relocations of affected residents.

But government relocation has proven to be disastrous for the urban poor dwellers hit by the NorthRail construction.

In an interview with Bulatlat in October 2004, a number of those relocated in a hilly village in San Jose, Del Monte, Bulacan complained of shortage of water, food, electricity and other necessities, not to mention government neglect after their relocation.

On the other hand, sugar and mill workers in Hacienda Luisita who went on a simultaneous strike last Nov. 6 are blocking the construction of the SCTEP as they also stand to lose their homes once the project gets underway.

Moreover, the cane workers who are farm-worker beneficiaries (FWBs) under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) are demanding the immediate implementation of the Department of Agrarian Reform’s recommendation to revoke the estate’s Stock Distribution Plan (SDP).

The SDP is an option under the CARP that allows landowners to operate their landholdings as corporations. If this plan is recalled, the land will be up for distribution to FWBs. The latter in turn will demand that the land should remain undivided.

The mill and cane workers’ opposition to the project and their militancy to uphold their strike are, however, met with military brutality, reports show. After facing the bloodiest picket line dispersal last Nov. 16 which left seven dead, scores injured and disappeared, the hacienda workers continue face military threats.

Deployed inside the hacienda itself are around 300 soldiers from three companies of the 69^th Infantry Battalion and the 703^rd Infantry Brigade. Practically each of the 11 villages comprising the hacienda has a military detachment, it was learned.

Second wave

Union members now see the strong military presence as the “second wave” of its kind after the government tagged the hacienda workers’ strike as a “national security threat.”

The first quarter of this year witnessed the killing of four hacienda workers’ supporters (i.e., peasant leaders Marcelino Beltran and Victor Concepcion, Tarlac City Councilor Abel Ladera, and activist-priest William Tadena). Five activists also disappeared, including the President’s distant relative Danny Macapagal.

In the book Trinity of War (Book III) published by the Nolcom, it said “The combined labor-agrarian unrest (in Hacienda Luisita) did not only cripple Luzon’s biggest sugar refinery and sugar plantation; it will also subsequently affect the government’s program to boost CL’s economic development.”

It added, “Disrupting the SCTEP’s construction through the Hacienda Luisita strike,… will slow down efforts by the national government to speed up the socio-economic development in CL and address widespread poverty that is a breeding ground of rebellion.”

Sr. Cecile said in the Oct. 12 press conference that if Palparan continues to sow terror in order to assure the continuation of the government’s flagship projects, human rights violations, especially the killings, will continue. Bulatlat

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