HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
From Jan
to Nov 2005
12 Rights Violation Victims Every Hour
First
of two parts
With almost 100,000 victims of human rights violations, the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration proves to have no mercy on political forces calling for the
ouster of an illegitimate presidency. With nowhere to go for redress, the
victims were constrained to go to two people’s courts this year in their
search for justice.
BY
DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
AWAITING RELIEF: An Aeta mother and
child are among those relieved to know that their visitors are not
soldiers but members of a mercy mission.
PHOTO BY
DABET CASTAÑEDA |
Tension in Aeta area
There was tension among the Aeta (an
indigenous tribe) residents of Barangay Camias in Porac, Pampanga, after
two 10-wheeler trucks arrived in the early morning of Dec. 8. The long
shout of the tribe’s leader was the signal for the members of the
community to go out of their houses and to gather in front of a Baptist
church where the two trucks were parked.
More than 100 Aeta families assembled.
They were relieved to know that those who alighted from the trucks were
members of the mercy mission organized by the Alay Bayan, Inc. (ABI), a
foundation assisting natural and man-made disaster-stricken areas.
|
Sr. Cecil Ruiz, ABI executive
director, said her organization received reports that for almost four
months since September, Army and Air Force soldiers conducted zoning
operations in the area supposedly to rescue Maj. Neptune Eliquin of the
Philippine Air Force (PAF) who was reportedly captured by the New People’s
Army (NPA) in late August this year.
“Napabayaan na namin yung mga tanim
namin dahil hindi na kami makapunta sa bukid,” (We were unable to take
care of our crops because we cannot go to our farms) one the residents
said during a random interview by Bulatlat. “Yung konti naming
naani hindi na namin naibenta sa mga mamimili sa palengke,” (We were
unable to market the few crops we were able to harvest) one of the
residents said.
For two days since the soldiers
arrived, they could not eat due to fear. They were also forbidden by the
soldiers from speaking in Kapampangan, the local dialect, and ordered to
speak in only in Tagalog so the soldiers could understand.
|
CAMPING IN: Army soldiers and paramilitary groups
belonging to the Civilian Armed Auxiliary are camped in these huts in the
middle of an Aeta community in Porac, Pampanga.
PHOTO BY
DABET CASTAÑEDA |
A mother, who carried her one-year old
child using a cheesecloth tied around her waist and neck, said they did
not go out of their house out of intense fear. She added that her children
stopped going to school for a several days because even the teachers were
afraid to come out.
The community had reason to be afraid.
In midnight of Sept. 16, Bienvenido
Capuno, their village chair, was shot dead by three unidentified men
believed by the villagers to be soldiers. A witness who refused to be
identified said Capuno and four other village officials were manhandled
and dragged around the community when around a hundred soldiers came in
early September to search for Eliquin.
“Sabi ng mga sundalo tinatago daw
namin yung mga NPA,” (According to the soldiers, we were hiding the
NPA rebels) the witness said. A week before the killing happened, he heard
a soldier whom he identified only as “Tisoy” telling Capuno, “Mukhang
may underground ka sa utak mo. Balang araw utak mo ang pasasabugin
ko.” (It appears that you have “underground” in your brain. Someday, I
will shoot your brains out.) Underground, he said, referred to the
underground revolutionary movement.
The witness said Capuno was shot twice
in the head while he was sleeping in the small videoke bar he owned and
operated in Barangay Pio, a neighboring village.
Villagers admired Capuno who opposed
the community’s demolition due to mining and eco-tourism.
Overall human rights picture
The fear and anxiety felt in this Aeta
community are echoed in hundreds of communities in the Philippine
countryside that have been under siege mainly due to military operations.
The human rights group Karapatan
(Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) said that from January
to Nov. 30, there were 872 cases of human rights violations recorded, with
99,003 victims in 288 communities.
The most frequent types of human
rights violations were forcible evacuation/displacement, strafing and
indiscriminate firing, and threat, harassment and intimidation. (See Table
1)
Table 1
Most frequent types of human rights violation
(Jan. to Nov. 2005) |
Case |
Affected
Individuals |
Forcible evacuation/displacement |
48,765 |
Strafing, indiscriminate firing and bombings |
23,911 |
Threat, harassment and intimidation |
10,832 |
Hamletting |
10,031 |
Restriction or dispersal of mass actions,
public assemblies, gatherings |
9,012 |
Source: Karapatan |
|
Based on these figures, there were 12
people whose rights were violated every hour, or 296 people every day, in
the first eleven months of 2005.
According to Karapatan, 150 people
were killed in the first eleven months of the year. They were victims of
summary execution, assassination, massacre, strafing, indiscriminate
firing and bombings. In 2004, Karapatan documented 63 political killings.
In its 2005 Human Rights Report,
Karapatan said that it monitored heavy military presence in areas
perceived by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as strongholds of
armed revolutionary groups like the NPA, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
In the latter part of November, at
least 2,000 families have been reportedly affected by military operations
in seven municipalities in Quezon province (more than 100 kilometers south
of Manila) due to the military’s pursuit operations against the NPA.
In southern Philippines, Moro
communities in Sulu was turned into a garrison when the AFP conducted
massive military operations against the MNLF in February and November,
Karapatan’s Sulu Mercy Mission Report said.
Mining, logging and military
operations
The concentration of military
operations are focused in areas where there are strong resistance to
government-business joint ventures or businesses of multinational
companies especially in mining and logging, the Karapatan report added.
“It was no coincidence,” the report
said, “that a few months after intensive military operations in Samar, The
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) lifted the logging
ban in the area.”
The residents of Samar, one of the
three main islands in Eastern Visayas (Central Philippines), became
victims of offensive military operations from February to August 2005
under command of controversial Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan. During this
period, 25 persons were killed and 31 others were abducted and still
missing.
In Tarlac (120 km. North of Manila),
13 individuals were killed given their involvement in the 13-month strike
at Hacienda Luisita that started in Nov. 2004. The workers and residents
of the 6,400-hectare sugar estate owned by the family of former President
Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino have been demanding better working conditions and
opposing land conversion schemes and Macapagal-Arroyo’s pet project, the
Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP).
Assassinations, disappearances,
massacres
Like Capuno, several local officials
known to be supportive of the people’s struggles have been targeted for
assassination and similar harassment.
Tarlac lost City Councilor Abelardo
Ladera and Barangay (village) Captain Ricardo Ramos who were both killed
by snipers believed to be members of the military’s death squad.
A fact-finding mission in Villareal,
Samar in the middle of this year found a supposed military hit list that
included municipal officials from the mayor down to the lowest village
official. In fact, 50-year-old Constancio Calubid, a member of the
Barangay San Andres Peacekeeping Council, was tortured by soldiers in
front of his family and then abducted. He was found dead a month later.
Bulatlat
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