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IN February, two petitions for Writ of Amparo were filed by
Karapatan with the Court of Appeals, Cebu Station, against the
military. The petitions were filed in behalf of Flaviano Arante and
Reynaldo Yanoc of Barangay Talalak, Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental.
The Court of Appeals dismissed the petitions. Contrary to some media
reports, the decisions were not appealed.
Barangay Talalak is part of the area where the
development program of the peace agreement between the government
and the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB)
is being implemented. The farmers’ organization brings bananas to
Bacolod City every week. Life is still hard, but incomes have
improved with the banana business.
However, a local NGO worker explains, the NPA is
“not happy about it. If all the people in the hinterlands will
choose peace and development as an option in emancipating them from
poverty and exploitation nobody will join the NPA anymore.” Edward
Candelario, a farmer in Barangay Talalak, refused the NPA’s
invitation for him to join them and was shot dead. Welinda,
Candelario’s pregnant wife, died eight months later after giving
birth to the couple’s seventh child. A leader of the farmers’
organization in neighboring Barangay Nagbinlod was murdered in the
same manner. His pregnant widow didn’t testify, fearing for her
life.
The CPP-NPA would probably dismiss the two
assassinated farmers as nothing but mercenaries and agents of the
“criminal RPA-ABB gang under Tabara in Negros ” (CPP press
release June 9, 2008). Interesting that the NPA still remembers to
their former comrade Arturo Tabara considering that they
assassinated him in Quezon City almost four years ago. Tabara’s
son-in-law was killed in the same attack. His was at the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Karapatan, which uses the label “human rights
organization,” has apparently taken no action on the murders of
Candelario and the other farmer-leader, neither has it condemned the
numerous harassments of local residents by the NPA. “When
Karapatan comes in,” the NGO worker says, “the residents know
those apprehended are connected to the CPP-NPA in whatever form.
However, the people are afraid to witness for fear of retaliation
from the NPA.” Last May, several encounters between the military
and the NPA in Barangays Nagbinlod and Talalak resulted in the death
of one soldier and the wounding of several others.
The National Democratic Front Negros, on the
other hand, in its July 3 statement praises “the patriotic and
progressive leaders and activists of KARAPATAN, KMP, KAUGMAON, NFSW,
PAMALAKAYA, Bayan Muna and Anak Pawis Partylists, [and] church and
health workers.” The “church” referred to by Frank Fernandez,
the NDF Negros spokesperson, is probably United Church of Christ in
the Philippines (UCCP) and the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI)
as we would not be surprised to find “patriotic and progressive”
members and leaders in these churches. One UCCP pastor tells me that
a number of his fellow pastors are card bearing members of the
Communist Party of the Philippines. Bishops of UCCP and IFI, with
like-minded foreign religious, recently “confirmed” that the
military had committed massive human rights abuses in Barangay
Linantuyan in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental (July 4, 2008, Sun Star
Dumaguete).
The NPA, like the patriotic and progressive
religious, condemns the military. This time for the latter’s
alleged abduction of one of its combatants. Col. Cesar Yano,
commanding officer of the 302nd Infantry Brigade based in Tanjay
City, is accused of having his men arrest NPA combatant Calixto
“Ka Manong” Alfante while the latter was “alone and unarmed”
(NPA statement June 27, 2008). In April the NPA liquidated CAFGU
member Elpidio Catubay Bacarro in Guihulngan. The NPA claims it was
“only” going to arrest Bacarro and try him before its
“revolutionary court” for alleged crimes against local
residents, but apparently Bacarro resisted and was shot dead.
It is expected that the CPP-NPA and its allied
groups react with allegations of human rights abuses whenever the
military deploys troops in barangays that have been controlled by
the NPA and its supporters. When their days of harassing local
residents, killing those who refuse to support them, and extorting
from ordinary folks and the barangays are coming to an end, the NPA
and its allies roll out their massive propaganda campaign to stem
the tide. Negros, however, needs peace and justice, not war and
deception, to solve its various social ills and to eradicate
poverty.
opinion@manilatimes.net
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