Human Rights Watch
Negros Labor Organizer Missing, Military Blamed
A
sad Christmas awaits a family of a Negros-based labor organizer who has
been missing since Dec. 5. Negros cause-oriented groups say it is the
handiwork of the military which the latter strongly denies. A military
officer, however, is quick to accuse the missing labor organizer of being
a member of the New People’s Army.
BY KARL OMBION
Bulatlat
BACOLOD
CITY – A labor organizer based here has been missing since Dec. 5. While
the military denies any hand in his disappearance, an officer stressed
that he is a member of the New People’s Army (NPA).
Perseus
Geagoni, 42, was last seen Dec. 5 at around 7:30 p.m. when he borrowed a
black
Kawasaki
motorcycle from his sister in
Talisay
City, seven kilometers north of this city. He said that he needed to go to
the office of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) in Bacolod
City.
Geagoni is a
long-time NFSW organizer and a resident of Zone 4, Talisay City.
The next
day, his wife Nieva called his cellular phone which rang but no one
answered. She became suspicious and checked with his husband’s colleagues
at the NFSW. She was told that he left the NFWS office on the evening of
Dec. 5. She then asked her sister, other relatives and friends but no one
knew his whereabouts.
Nieva and
his husband’s sister Babeth said that a few days before his disappearance,
two unidentified persons on a motorcycle kept asking neighbors about his
husband’s activities and where he goes. “Somebody must have already been
casing him, and they could be people who are not happy with his
involvement in the militant organization,” Nieva said.
Last Dec.
12, Geagoni’s family filed a report at the Police Station 6 of Bacolod
City and presented the case to the media in a press conference called by
the Negros chapter of human rights group Karapatan (Alliance
for the Advancement of People’s Rights).
Military blamed
Fred Cana,
national council member of Karapatan, said that the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) and the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao
Brigade (RPA-ABB) are responsible for Geagoni’s disappearance. “The
pattern of political killings and harassments against progressive
organizations in Negros during the past months point to the military and
the paramilitary RPA-ABB as the perpetrators because of their consistent
and rabid anti-left campaigns.”
Cana said
eight organizers were already killed this year, seven from NFSW and one
from the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the
Philippines).
Last week,
two other NFSW members, Paquito Evangelio and Narciso De La Cruz,
residents of Brgy Dolis and Brgy Cabungan-an, Calatrava town, around 130
kilometers north of Negros, were also killed.
Brig. Gen.
Joggy Leo Fojas, commanding officer of the 303rd Brigade,
denied the allegations that the military was behind the killings. He
challenged Karapatan to present evidence. He also accused Geagoni of
heading the regional partisan unit of the New People’s Army (NPA).
Geagoni’s
family and the NFSW however denied the accusation. Geagoni, they said, is
affiliated with NFSW as organizer and member of its regional education
committee.
Unsolved rights violation cases
Felipe Gelle,
secretary general of the
Negros
chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance),
said, “The burden of proof in disproving their role in these political
killings is with them, not with us. It’s the military that has been waging
sustained witch-hunting and all sorts of bloody psy-war campaigns against
militant organizations.”
In fact,
Gelle stressed, not a single case of human rights violation has been
solved because of the military’s harassment of the families seeking
justice.
Last
October, seven KMP organizers were arrested by a military composite unit
under the 303rd Brigade at a checkpoint in Brgy Camingawan,
Kabankalan City. While detained at the Camingawan HQ of the 61st
IB, they were denied their right to seek legal counsel and to see their
families and relatives.
Had not one
of the seven victims sent text messages discreetly to human rights
organizations, Gelle said that they would be missing now. Bulatlat
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.