A human rights tragedy: same place, new stage

Press, 5 April 1989, Page 20

A human rights tragedy: same place, new stage

President Corazon Aquino has been lauded throughout the world for restoring democracy in the Philippines, but this image has slowly eroded. DAVID ROBIE, in the third part of his Philippines series, reports on human rights violations.

The grizzled captain (mayor) of the baranguy of Campo Uno in Bukidnon province, points to a bullet hole high up in the flourmill shed panel. “They began shooting as he stood here,” he says. Then he walks over the paved courtyard to where \ another bullet has shattered a fragment out of the concrete wall.

"One of the bullets ricocheted here. They fired five shots at him with Armalites; then one bullet got him in the chest and killed him.” By this time a large crowd has gathered, still shocked by the tragedy on New Year’s Eve, just five nights earlier.

The onlookers are also intrigued that a foreign journalist should be in this remote and forgotten township trying to reconstruct events before any of the human rights investigators arrive. But like the mayor, the witnesses are reluctant to be named.

“They” were a group of the notorious C.A.F.G.U., a sort of armed militia being recruited by the Philippines military to do their dirty work in counterinsurgency. “He” was a popular local shopkeeper, 42-year-old Frankie Leop.

The C.A.F.G.U. militiamen had attended a nearby dance and then gathered for a customary midnight fireworks frolic at the mill. But their real objective was apparently the “salvaging,” or killing, of Leop. It was not immediately clear whether he was murdered as an alleged Communist sympathiser, or as revenge for some slight. Authorities made only a cursory investigation. The killing followed two other recent “salvagings” in the central part of Bukidnon, near the area earmarked for a controversial New Zealand-backed forestry aid project. At the baranguy of Magsal, near Valencia, 45-year-old Jorge Bahian was murdered last December 30 by Tadtad — literally “Chopchop” — Right-wing, fundamentalist assassins. A large piece of flesh was sliced off his left thigh.

When I talked to one of the three eyewitnesses to the killing, he was fearful for his own life. He was persuaded to give information in confidence to local human rights investigators.

Further south, at Kapalaran, the military wanted to set up a detachment of soldiers in the baranguy as part of the “hamletting” in areas regarded as rebel strongholds. A public meeting was held by the military. Although most of the peasants opposed a military post, only one man, Carlo Balugkit, spoke out publicly. Two nights later, on November 10, he was abducted by hooded men in uniforms. Next morning his body was found dumped in a ditch, his

arms bound behind him, his jaw shattered from a rifle blow and a bullet hole in his back.

Almost every day the Manila national newspapers report Right-wing “salvagings” or shootings by the military, and assassinations by Left-wing “sparrow” squads. But, according to leading journalists, many of the human rights violations go unreported. One newsman showed me a thick file of reports of killings with supporting affidavits that had been censored by his paper,

the Philippine “Daily Inquirer” which boasts the slogan “balanced news, fearless views.” Nevertheless, studies by international and local human rights groups reflect a grave and growing problem. Under the Marcos dictatorship, international Human Rights Day on December 10 was marked in irony for victims of military abuses. But many groups now consider the situation under President Aquino to be worse, or at least just as bad. Amnesty International said in its report last year: “Since mid-1987 political killings carried out by Government and Government-backed forces in violation of the law have become the most serious human rights problems in the Philippines.” According to the Churchbacked Task Force Detainees, in 1987 alone, 7444 people were arrested without warrants, 602 people were tortured, and 284 were killed or wounded in 29 massacres of civilians by vigilantes, the military or armed private security forces. Late last year, the military death squads appeared to have changed tack. Now, instead of killing high profile leaders, their targets are frequently less wellknown “middle rank” community and social justice workers. The victims are kidnapped, murdered and their bodies hidden.

A newly-formed human rights group, Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (F.1.N.D.) staged a protest in Manila during November. Led by nuns wearing masks daubed with questionmarks, the protesters demanded information from the Government about their missing relatives.

Among recent disappearances have been Pearl Abaya, staff members of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, and Lilian Mercado, information officer of the radical political group Partido ng Bayan (New Patriotic Alliance). They

were last seen leaving the Task Force Detainees office in Manila a week before the F.I.N.D. protest.

Another Bayan official, Efren Bonagula, and three members of the League of Filipino Students also disappeared the same month. Last month, Nestle Philippines trade unionist Meliton Roxes was murdered by vigilantes. Human rights lawyers have also been a major target. Five lawyers, who had all served as counsel for suspected political dissidents, have been gunned down by assassins in the last 14 months.

David Bueno, a young Free Legal Assistance Group (F.L.A.G.) member, was shot dead by two unidentified men in Laoag City on October 22, 1987. Last year, on February 6, 36-year-old Vicente “Vic” Mirabueno was gunned down by three assassins using .45 calibre pistols at the entrance to General Santos City’s public market. Also a F.L.A.G. lawyer and a local Bayan official, he was legal counsel to most political detainees in South Cotabato province.

On June 17, another F.L.A.G. lawyer, Ramos Cura, was shot dead in Angeles City, next to Clark Air Base. He was on a panel of defence lawyers for the detained alleged Communist Party leader Rodolfo Salas.

About a week after Cura’s assassination, on June 24, Alfonso Surigao, also a F.L.A.G. lawyer, was shot and killed at his house in Cebu City. Barely a week later, on July 2, Emmanuel Mendoza, a lawyer active for Manila’s urban poor, was shot inside his car by two men riding a motorcycle in the middle of traffic.

‘Who will protect us now?’ Victims of human rights violations, mostly ordinary citizens are wanting to ask,” noted the Philippine “Human rights Update” magazine in a recent editorial. “Indeed, the defenders themselves have become the targets of attacks.” Says lawyer Peter Montejo, secretary-general of Mindanao Human Rights Advocates (M.A.H.R.A.), a group affiliated to the Philippine Association of

Human Rights Advocates: "Anybody who questions or investigates has got to face the fact that the military consider them as subversives.” He is rather pessimistic about the state of human rights. "Suppose they arrest you at home, take you away and your relatives try to find out what has happened,” he says. “The military simply say, ‘Oh, we have already released him. See here is his signature.” But he just disappears. “How does a lawyer file the case?”

Early last year the Armed Forces of the Philippines announced a counter-insurgency plan aimed at “Destroying the political structure of the insurgency” as opposed to a strategy of “destroying the insurgents’ military structure.” Conveniently omitted from the statement was the definition of the limits of such a plan. Taken generally, if “political structure” means the suspected fronts of the insurgency — this could easily be interpreted to include the many legal and non-govern-mental organisations which have been and can easily be branded as “Leftist” or “Communist” by Government officials. The killings are part of a complex web of violence now sweeping the country. Since the final quarter of 1988, urban insurgents have claimed responsibility for killing close to 100 policemen, military informers and soldiers. In rallies staged by policemen and vigilantes in Manila, “anti-Communist” protesters have demanded the blood

of not only New People’s Army rebels, but of legal personalities whom they claim to be supporters.

Then here are the Right-wing vigilantes — civilian volunteers drawn by the police and military into counter-insurgency. In Manila, the best known of these groups is the so-called “Crusaders of Peace and Democracy,” whose armed members terrorise the urban poor and slum ghettos of Tondo.

The vigilantes are being trained in courses such as coun-ter-insurgency tactics, marksmanship, military discipline, surveillance and counter-surveil-lance.

Davao City, the largest town in the southern island of Mindanao, is where the urban guerrilla conflict has been most bitter during the last three years. In the slums of Agdao was born the most notorious vigilante group — Alsa Masa.

Portrayed by its supporters as a spontaneous uprising of the people to protect themselves against “abuses” by N.P.A. guerrillas and to preserve their communities from “godless Communism,” Alsa Masa’s actual origins are a Mafia-style world of crime and gangsterism. Led by Wilfredo “Baby” Aquino, a corrupt local baranguy captain who ran a chain of gambling syndicates and brothels, the vigilantes were armed and backed by the military. Baby Aquino was assassinated by the N.P.A. in 1986. President Aquino’s Government actually encourages civilian participation in the counter-

insurgency strategy. While supporting the formation of vigilante groups, ironically it also states, in the words of Human Rights Commissioner Mary Concepcion Bautista, that “vigilantes not subject to military discipline and training are violating the constitution.”

The issue of vigilantes has been tackled repeatedly by Congress as well as reports by international human rights groups. All have condemned the Government policy of support for the vigilantes. “While Cory gives the impression to the people and the international community that things are now more liberal,” says lawyer Montejo, “the military have been intensifying the repression through hamletting, bombing and strafing of villages and blocking food supplies as well as general militarisation.” The Government appears bent on diffusing the pressure. While it claims that armed vigilante groups should be disbanded, it encourages the members to join the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (C.A.F.G.U.S), which are now being organised to replace the notorious Citizens Home Defence Force (C.H.D.F.). The military is counting on a 100,000-strong C.A.F.G.U. to back up the 180,000 troops in its counter-insurgency drive. Perhaps, as the respected Filipino commentator Francisco Sionil Jose suggests, so far we have only seen just the beginning in the spiral of killings. The Philippines may be destined to become another Lebanon, or even an El Salvador.