There Must Be Punitive Actions Against the
AFP
BY
Rep. Satur C. Ocampo
Bayan Muna, Party-List
Privilege Speech
House of Representatives
I rise on a question of personal and collective
privilege in light of the recent spate of killings and abductions of
members of my party, Bayan Muna and those of my fellow Party-List
Representatives in the Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party. There is Mr.
Speaker, distinguished colleagues, a seemingly grave danger even to the
lives of at least four of the present Party-List Representatives, namely:
Representatives Teodoro Casiño, Rafael Mariano, Liza Maza and this
Representation.
Why do I conclude this threat is
impending? In the first week of March, there has been a series of military
actions against members of our parties. On the first day of March, four
members of the Gabriela Women’s Party were accosted and arrested by
soldiers of the Philippine Army, not by members of the Philippine National
Police (PNP) who are properly authorized to do such arrests, in the town
of Sampaloc, Quezon.The four members of the Gabriela Women’s Party are
Leonila Manalo, Nancy Elle, Aileen Ramos and Miralyn Gamba. Only their
alertness in having boarded a jeepney followed by the soldiers and seeking
recourse to the protection of the PNP in Sampaloc prevented them from
being carted away to a military camp. There was no warrant of arrest and,
subsequently, they were freed without any charges filed against them.
On the 3rd of March in Tarlac, in
Barangay Paraiso of Tarlac City, Bayan Muna leader and number two
councilor of Tarlac City, Abelardo Ladera, was murdered in cold blood at
past 1pm, while he was purchasing
spare parts for his jeep. On the same afternoon another Bayan Muna leader
and the former secretary general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan – Nueva
Ecija, Danilo Macapagal, was abducted by armed men and forcibly made to
board a van that sped away. To this day Mr. Macapagal has not been
located.
On the 6th of this month, a company-sized formation of the 63rd Infantry
Battalion commanded by Col. Manuelito Uzi under the 803rd Infantry Brigade
commanded by Col. Bernardo de Luna in Catarman, Samar, staked out before
the headquarters of the Bayan Muna-Northern Samar headquarters, in an
apparent effort to terrorize or threaten the members of Bayan Muna in that
province who were protesting the deployment of military troops in the town
of Catubig. And on the following day, the seventh of this month, in the
Province of Zambales, two army soldiers from the 24th Infantry Battalion
arrested Mer Dizon, the chairman of the provincial chapter of Anakpawis,
who is now in detention in the Iba Provincial Jail.
In Central Luzon, Mr. Speaker, this
renewed political repression h as already resulted in 11 killings and five
abductions or disappearances, only from January to the first week of
March. This occurred in the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueve Ecija,
Tarlac, Aurora and Bataan. Apparently, Mr. Speaker, what happened in
Mindoro in the years 2001-2003 where several killings, abduction and
disappearances occurred, is now a threatening phenomenon in Central Luzon
and also beginning to spread in the provinces of Quezon, Laguna and
Batangas in Southern Tagalog.
This is not the first time, Mr.
Speaker, that I stand up in this Chamber to make similar denunciations of
political repression against our political party and the people’s
organizations supportive of our party. In the 12th Congress, this august
Body approved a resolution that led the House Committee on Human Rights to
make an investigation in the series of
killings of more than 40 members of Bayan Muna over a period of almost
three years. There was an investigation and there were recommendations by
the committee, among them the freezing of the promotion of Col. Jovito
Palparan, who was tagged as the “butcher of Mindoro”. Apparently, the
recommendation of the committee had fallen on deaf ears, there was no
positive action. Instead, Col. Palparan was subsequently promoted to
brigadier general. And after his stint as the Chief of military contingent
sent to Iraq, which was withdrawn to save the life of overseas Filipino
worker Angelo de la Cruz, he has been promoted to head the 8th Infantry
Division in Samar. It is his units that were harassing now the people at
the headquarters of Bayan Muna in Catarman.
The questions that I raise again, Mr.
Speaker are: First, is the government, this present government, determined
to illegalize Bayan Muna. Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party, or is it
set on stopping the growth and influence of our parties as defenders and
advocates of the people’s interest and welfare in this legislature and
through the democratic mass movement?
Second, is it the government’s policy
to make no distinction between the underground revolutionary movement and
the aboveground legal democratic mass movement, as the Armed Forces of the
Philippines and the Philippine National Police blatantly do, and thus
consider as legitimate targets for armed attack or physical elimination
both those underground and those aboveground?
Third, have the Armed Forces operating
units been given police powers to make arrests, searches, and seizures on
civilians? If so, since when and on what legal basis was this power given
to them? In so many instances in Mindoro before and recently in Quezon,
the Philippine National Police leadership acknowledged its powerlessness
to interfere with supposed military operations tagged as “Internal
Security Operations” or ISO even
when civilians are very evident victims of human rights violation arising
from such military operations.
The most appalling of all the recent
developments, Mr. Speaker, was a series of briefings that the Northern
Luzon Command gave to government entities, including the Department of
Justice, in relation to the unresolved issues in Hacienda Luisita after
the massacre of the striking workers on November 16, 2004.
I have a copy of the briefing which is
also in video that identify among supposed personalities of the Communist
Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army who allegedly planned
and implemented the workers’ strikes and were allegedly even responsible
for the violence that attended the dispersal on November 16, the very man
I mentioned earlier, Councilor Abelardo Ladera, who is now lying in state
at the plaza of Tarlac City and would be interred tomorrow.
The military action taken against him,
in this Representation’s view, is directly related to the implication by
the Northern Luzon Command of Councilor Ladera as a member of the New
People’s Army. Along with Councilor Ladera, the briefing implicated four
of us Party-List Representatives here in Congress in a report related to
the strike at Hacienda Luisita in which we Representatives Teodoro Casiño,
Rafael Mariano and myself are cited as having gone on November 15 at the
strike picket and, I quote the NOLCOM briefing, “urged the workers to
continue their strike as one speaker shouted they will pursue their strike
even if there will be bloodshed”. And it further says “ that after the
incident, the three of us, including Congresswoman Liza Maza of Gabriela,
arrived on November 17 and attended the wake of the casualties,” and that
we “delivered the invective or incendiary statements against government
forces.”
This is a damning accusation against
four Members of the House of Representatives, I am aware that the Chief of
the Philippine National
Police has written to Speaker Jose de Venecia complaining about the
“impropriety” that the four of us, Party-List Representatives, have
supposedly been responsible for by both agitating the workers to defy the
order to return to work of the Department of Labor, of instigating and
making publicity out of the massacre. It has been alleged by NOLCOM that
all of these actions were in consonance with the broad program of the
underground revolutionary movement.
The direct implication, Mr. Speaker,
is that the Party-List Representatives are taking command and implementing
programs from the CPP-NPA that foment violence. After, the murder of
Councilor Ladera on the third of March, this Representation has been
receiving a lot of warnings by well-meaning friends to take extra care
security precautions because the military are likely to replicate what
they did to Councilor Ladera to the Party-List Representatives mentioned
in this briefing by NOLCOM, as possible targets of similar armed attacks.
By any cognition or perception, Mr.
Speaker, the killings, abductions, and disappearances cannot be but acts
of terrorism. The probability, if not the certainty, that these are
perpetrated by agents of the State, through its military or paramilitary
operatives, makes the situation a larger cause for public concern and for
urgent actions to put an end to these atrocities.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, distinguished
colleagues, can’t the Thirteen Congress do something about the situation?
Or, as happened after the Twelfth Congress hearings, investigations and
recommendations, will the situation of killings continue endangering the
lives of many of peoples’ organizations and of Party-List Representatives
trying their best to give relief to our struggling peasants, workers,
urban poor and other marginalized sectors?
This, I submit, Mr. Speaker, is a
question that must be directly addressed by Congress. The matter has been
brought to the Committee on Ethics; I think it should be more than the
Committee on Ethics that must look into the allegations beyond
“impropriety” on the part of the four Representative with regard to the
Hacienda Luisita strike. The very serious charges of the NOLCOM need to be
substantiated, otherwise, there has to be some punitive actions on the
military for putting in danger the very lives and the very security of
elected Representatives, namely: Reps. Teodoro Casiño, Liza Maza, Rafael
Mariano and this Representation.
I submit, Mr. Speakers, that action is
awaited from us in this Chamber. Posted by
Bulatlat
8 March 2005
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