Vigilantes Philippines’ answer to guerrillas

Press, 30 November 1987, Page 4

Vigilantes Philippines’ answer to guerrillas

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RUBEN ALABASTRO

NZPA-Reuter Manila The man they call "Grandpa” squinted down the barrel of his gun and fired at a cardboard figure of a communist assassin. "I am doing this for my country and my children," he explained.

At 63, Alexander Macale has lost all his teeth and most of his hair and looks ready to spend the rest of his days in peaceful retirement. But recently, he strode up to a police firing range to answer a call by President Corazon Aquino for civilian vigilantes to fight a wave of assassinations in the Philippine capital by urban querrillas.

Macale was the oldest of 200 people from the Tondo slum district who queued up to join Manila’s first vigilante force. The youngest was a bashful criminology student, aged 18, and all were men except a widowed mother of seven.

"I am already old. It

doesn’t matter if I get killed,” Macale said. Dubbed “Crusaders for Peace,” the vigilantes are the Government’s latest weapon in a guerrilla war that reached Manila this year after staying buried in the provinces for nearly two decades. More than 50 people, mostly soldiers and policemen, have been killed this year in Manila street ambushes blamed on communist death squads known as “Sparrows.”

The police say they will use "crusaders” to report movements of strangers in their neighbourhoods. Vigilantes who have licensed guns and “like adventure” will be allowed to join police patrols, Tondo’s Police Chief, Major Romeo Maganto, said.

Two hundred vigilante groups have already been formed in other parts of the country, mainly in towns and villages. Human-rights groups accuse them of indiscrim-

inate killings and other abuses.

“Grandpa” put two shots into the eight-foot tall cardboard target from a distance of six metres. "The sparrow is dead,” shouted a spectator. Macale beamed with pride as smoke curled from the barrel of his revolver.

"During the war I fought the Japanese. Why should I be afraid now?” he said when asked if he would be scared to face a “sparrow” in the streets.

The mother of seven, Adelaida Merillo, aged 47, said she was joining the vigilantes because she wanted to live in a peaceful country. She probably would not mind carrying a gun if she had to, she added.

“When I get angry I am ready to figtit,” she said. The criminology student was less sure of his reasons for joining up. “I heard people were enlisting so I came. There is no backing out now,” he said.

Maganto said 3000 residents of Tondo, whose poverty has made it a communist breeding ground, had applied to join the vigilantes since the call for volunteers went out a week ago. Three hundred had ak ready been signed up.

He said some of the volunteers were respectable businessmen, but the ragged group at the firing range looked povertystricken. Some wore the intimidating look of neighbourhood toughs. "You are the crusaders for peace,” Maganto shouted. “This is a fight between democracy and communism.” “We will come here every Saturday morning at six o’clock. We will jog and practise combat shooting and self-defence

...We will continue our training until we wipe out the communists,” he said. As a token of police gratitude, he said, each volunteer would be given a 3000-peso (SUSISO) personal accident insurance policy.