Ni Kislap Alitaptap
Kanina
Wala nang oras ang programa
Ihabol ang mabuting balita
Pantanggal umay sa balitang
Baha, lunod, guho
Ulan, hambalos, bugso
Dumagundong ang tambol
Ng pananagumpay ng
Kaayusan laban sa karahasan
Kanina
Nabanggit kayo sa balita
At sa pagmamadali
Ng nagbabalita
Nakalimutan niyang
Kayo’y ipakilala
Na kayo ay mga bata
At hindi mga sandata
Ang lansones at mangostena
Na inyong dala-dala.
The families of missing University of the Philippines students as well as human rights groups celebrated when the Regional Trial Court in Malolos City, Bulacan found retired Army Major General Jovito Palparan guilty of kidnapping and serious illegal detention Monday, September 17.
Cheers erupted when those gathered outside the courthouse were informed of the verdict on the case filed by Concepcion Empeño and Erlinda Cadapan, mothers of missing UP students Karen and Sherlyn, respectively.
Right after the promulgation, Palparan berated Judge Alexander Tamayo as well as the public prosecutor. (Video and report by Joseph Cuevas / Featured photo by Jinky Mendoza Aguilar)
Ni Pia Montalban
Nanlalagkit ang dagta,
kahit anong tamis
ng kabataang hinog
at di huhulas
ang lilang lamog
mula sa mga nilagusan
ng pulbura’t tingga.
Pitong bungang pinitas,
dagta’y pula ang tagas…
Pitong kabataang mag-uuma
yakap-yakap mga kahon ng bunga,
ngayo’y ikakahon silang terorista—
A-bu sa-yaff!
Ngunit gumugulong sa kalsada
ang nabitawang mga bunga
at magsasalaysay lamang ito
ng tapat na mga tala.
THE National Democratic Front in Panay (NDF-Panay) acknowledged that the seven killed in San Jose, Antique Wednesday, August 15, were their own who were “veterans and responsible cadres of the [Communist Party of the Philippines] and the revolution.”
In a statement issued a few hours after news of the massacre broke out, NDF-Panay spokesperson Concha Araneta said five of those mowed down by the military were “comrades full of ability, talent, intelligence and [were] most assiduous.”
Araneta said Felix Salditos alias Ka Dudi, Eldie Labinghisa alias Ka Elton, Karen Ceralvo alias Ka Liway, and Liezl Nadiola alias Ka Mayang were members of the CPP’s education and propaganda staff in the island who were in Antique to investigate people’s complaints.
Araneta said among the problems brought forward by the people in the province included demolition of urban poor houses, concerns of poor and small fisherfolks, the poverty of workers and sacadas, soaring prices of commodities and expenditures, among others.
She added that the two others, Jason Talibo alias Ka Bebe and Jason Sanchez, provided technical services in order to facilitate their research and study of the conditions of the most backward province in Panay.
“(U)nlike the fascist troops who conceal their casualties, we are proudest to acknowledge and claim Ka Dudi, Ipoy, Elton, Liway, Mayang, Bebe and Jason. We boast of them as among the best sons and daughters of our motherland,” Araneta said.
Araneta said the martyrs gave the ripest and most productive years of their lives to the utmost service to the people and for the advancement of the revolutionary struggle in Panay.
The seven were killed after midnight of August 15 in Barangay Atabay in what the San Jose police and the Philippine Army’s 301st Infantry Brigade Intelligence Task Group said was a 30-minute firefight.
No encounter
NDF-Panay, however, said the incident was a brutal massacre, planned and executed by the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Army.
Araneta said the seven victims were all asleep and unarmed, contrary to claims by the raiding team that a grenade, a .38 revolver, one KG-9, an M203 grenade were found at the scene that could hardly sustain a 30-minute clash if there was indeed a firefight.
She also questioned the police claim that the raiding team went to the area to serve warrants of arrest against two of the victims.
“If their intention was to serve the warrant, why execute it in the middle of the night, under cover of darkness? And to think that (they) had a hundred men deployed just to capture two personalities,” Araneta said.
Araneta also belied that the victims were members of the NPA’s taxation team or were planning to raid the San Jose police station.
Families of the victims in a press conference in Iloilo Thursday described some of them as writers, with Salditos cited as a notable painter and writer.
Maya Daniel’s last poem, posted a few minutes after they were killed by raiding police and military in San Jose, Antique.
Red poet
Sources told Kodao that Salditos was the poet and visual artist Maya Daniel.
Tributes to Daniel’s poetry in his Facebook account quickly poured, hailing him as an inspiration and thanking him for his sacrifice.
Daniel’s last update a few minutes before their deaths read, “Just posted 17 poems and visuals…Feel free to share, friends. Goodnight!”
Araneta said their martrys were smart and diligent comrades who shared their learning and knowledge to the younger generation of revolutionaries.
“They gave color, music, energy and life to revolutionary propaganda and culture for the exploited and oppressed, for genuine freedom, justice and peace,” she said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
By Jeoffrey Mhar Larua
SAGADA, Mountain Province – Peasants in the northern villages of Aguid, Pide, and Fidelisan here worry as elements of the 54th Infantry Battalion Philippine Army started listing individuals they allege to be members or supporters of the revolutionary New Peoples Army (NPA).
A Barangay Pide councilor who asked not to be identified told a fact-finding mission team August 9 that soldiers are making rounds in the villages with a list of names and ordering those in it to “clear their names” to their commanding officer.
The village official said that the list has nine names from the three northern villages.
“We are not sure who else is in that list,” the councilor said. “It bothers us that there’s a list that might risk our lives,” he said, adding that one elder from Pide is among those listed.
According to earlier reports, six soldiers went to Fidelisan village last August 1 and told barangay officials that three of their constituents are in the said list and must prove themselves innocent in nearby Aguid Elementary School where they set up camp.
The soldiers were led by 2Lt Keith Gabriel Paquibot of the 54th IBPA.
Fidelisan officials and elders called for an emergency meeting with their constituents August 3 to caution them about the said list.
“They warned the umili (community) not to open their doors to outsiders at nighttime and not to come alone when invited by the military,” said one Fidelisan resident.
Fidelisan officials recalled that the military often come uninvited to community meetings, taking notes and pictures of proceedings. The last incident, they said, was on June 25.
54th IBPA soldiers present in a community meeting in Sagada. (Photo by Jeoffrey Mhar Larua)
‘Disrespect of culture’
Meanwhile, officials from the three barangays decried the “peace rally” organized by the 54th IBPA troops in Aguid Elementary School while burial and a wedding ceremonies, deemed sacred event by the community, were being held.
“What they did was an insult to the sacred culture of Igorots,” said one Aguid official adding that the troops even took advantage of the food served during the wedding.
The soldiers, they said, refused to postpone the rally because their “boss” will be coming from Manila to observe.
Since early June, 54th IBPA troops have been observed by the community as using the Aguid school’s old buildings as their quarters. #
By Kimberlie Ngabit-Quitasol
BESAO, Mountain Province—Government soldiers occupying houses in Sitio Dandanac, Barangay Tamboan in Besao, Mountain Province are restricting the movement of village folk and causing fear among residents, a human rights fact-finding team said.
A community elder who spoke to the team Thursday, August 9, said the soldiers started occupying several houses in the community after a fire fight with the New People’s Army last month.
The elder requested not to be named due to fear of reprisals.
“The mere sight of the soldiers and their guns makes us feel uneasy and unsafe that we have become afraid to move around or even go to our rice fields,” the elder told the human rights team.
The elder said the soldiers has also required villagers to secure a “safety conduct pass” and government issued identification cards before being allowed to tend to their crops in their communal forest.
“It would be best if the soldiers would leave, but since it seems like that is not happening soon, we have to deal with our fear,” the elder said.
‘Community Service Program’
First Lieutenant Jade Gabino of the 81st Infantry Battallion of the Philippine Army said they were merely implementing security measures.
Gabino added they asked barangay officials for a list of residents whose farms are in the mountains and were given 72 names.
Those not in the list will be questioned, he added.
Gabino said they are not leaving anytime soon as their Community Service Program has yet to be concluded.
He said that the program was already approved through an executive order signed by the governor of Mountain Province.
He explained that soldiers will facilitate the implementation of local government programs such as medical missions, adding that some agencies are afraid to go to Dandanac due to the presence of armed groups.
Guns and military gear under a house occupied by 81st IBPA troopers in Sitio Dandanac, Besao, Mountain Province. (Photo by Sarah Dekdeken/Cordillera Peoples Alliance)
Delayed harvest, delayed planting
Farmers interviewed by the human rights team said that soldiers demand presentation of identification cards or resident certificates before being allowed to go to their farms.
“We have no choice but to comply because we have to tend to our farms and bring home our harvest or the rains would damage them,” one of the farmers said. “We have to eat,” he added.
The farmers said their rice harvest was reduced by half because of the military’s presence in their village. They added that the next planting season might even be delayed as a result.
The Mountain Province Human Rights Advocates (MPHRA) said several Sitio Dandanac farmers have yet harvest rice due to the military operations.
Fr. Joseph Requino, MPHRA chairperson said that the “safety conduct pass” policy is meant to secure soldiers and not civilians.
He said villagers know each other and can easily identify outsiders while the soldiers could not.
The human rights fact-finding mission was held in time for the commemoration of International Indigenous Peoples Day 2018. #
The Jose Rapsing Command of the New People’s Army (NPA) claimed 11 government soldiers were killed in the ambush it conducted Friday, August 3, at Sitio Manga, Barangay Mactan, Cawayan town in Masbate Province.
In a statement, Luz del Mar, spokesperson of the rebel army command, confirmed an earlier Philippine National Police report that three were killed on the spot but said eight more died at a hospital in Masbate City.
Three more state troopers were injured, she said, adding NPA guerrillas recovered two assault rifles and ammunition as well as documents containing valuable information from the combined Philippine Army (PA) and Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) troopers.
“The fire fight lasted for 20 minutes and ended when the surviving government soldiers fled, leaving behind their dead and injured comrades,” del Mar said in Filipino.
Last Friday, the Masbate Provincial Police Office reported that soldiers of the Philippine Army detachment based in Barangay Del Carmen in Uson town were conducting combat patrol operations when they encountered NPA fighters in the area.
Del Mar said that their successful ambush was in defense of civilians who suffer human rights violations by soldiers of the PA’s 2nd Infantry Division and the 22nd CAFGU Battalion operating in the area.
She cited the case of of the four motorcycle drivers massacred on August 3, 2015 as among the atrocities allegedly committed by government soldiers in the area.# (Raymund B. Villanueva)
Three government troopers under the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army were killed in an encounter in Masbate Province Friday morning, a spot report from the Philippine National Police said.
The soldiers figured in a fire fight with suspected members of the New People’s Army at Barangay Mactan, Cawayan town at about 8:30 in the morning that resulted in the deaths of three Civilian Armed Force Geographical Unit auxiliary troopers, the police added.
The Masbate Provincial Police Office (MASPPO) said that soldiers of the Philippine Army detachment based in Barangay Del Carmen in Uson town were conducting combat patrol operations when they encountered NPA fighters in the area.
The MASPPO did not reveal the names of the casualties.
The PNP said they have yet to determine if the NPA also suffered casualties.
The Romulo Jallores Command of the NPA in the Bicol Region has yet to issue a statement on the incident. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said they could no longer negotiate with a government headed by President Rodrigo Duterte.
In his strongest statement condemning Duterte’s repeated cancellation of formal talks yet, Sison said the Filipino people, especially the oppressed and exploited, cannot expect any benefit from negotiating with Duterte’s government, adding the president has broken so many promises related to the peace process.
“It is relatively easier and more productive for the NDFP to participate in the Oust-Duterte movement and to prepare for peace negotiations with the prospective administration that replaces the Duterte regime,” Sison said Thursday (June 28).
Sison said the Duterte regime is on record as having terminated the peace talks so many times that it is indubitably responsible for the termination of peace negotiations.
“It is therefore just for the revolutionary forces and the people to wage people´s war for national liberation and democracy,” Sison said.
Sison added that it would be well and good if Duterte withdraws finally from the peace negotiations with the NDFP.
But, in so doing, Duterte would deprive himself of the opportunity of creating false illusions that he is for peace, Sison said.
“He stands isolated and ripe for ouster by the broad united front of patriotic and democratic forces,” Sison said.
Duterte’s many lies
In a two part statement, Sison mentioned several promises broken by Duterte, including an unsolicited declaration on May 16, 2016 to amnesty and release all political prisoners.
Duterte only released 19 NDFP peace consultants in August 2016 to allow them to participate in the talks while about 520 NDFP-listed others remain in various detention facilities nationwide.
Duterte has also terminated the peace negotiations with the NDFP three times since May 2017, even fouling up every attempt to resume formal talks through back channel efforts, Sison said.
After terminating the peace negotiations for the third time in November and December 2017, Duterte issued Proclamation 360 to terminate the peace negotiations and Proclamation 374 to designate the CPP and NPA as terrorist organizations.
The Department of Justice subsequently filed a case before the Manila regional trial court (RTC) to seek the proscription of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA) and 600 individuals as terrorists.
“These are definitely obstacles to the resumption of peace negotiations with Duterte regime,” Sison said.
“Warm and cordial” start
NDFP’s negotiations with the Duterte government started well with the first two formal rounds of talks in Oslo, Norway described as “warm and cordial.”
Things turned sour, however, when a Philippine Army unit attacked an NPA camp in Arakan, North Cotabato in January 2017, killing an NPA fighter.
The attack came while the third round of formal talks just approved free land distribution as the centerpiece of a prospective agrarian reform and rural development agreement.
The five-month ceasefire in effect at the time, the longest between the NPA and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, was subsequently cancelled by both parties.
The fourth round of formal talks in Noordwijk, The Netherlands in April 2017 was very nearly cancelled due to the insistence of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) negotiating panel to negotiate a bilateral ceasefire agreement before further negotiations on social and economic reforms can proceed.
GRP negotiators explained that a bilateral ceasefire agreement are goodwill measures that would provide a conducive atmosphere for the continuation of formal talks.
No fifth round of formal talks has yet pushed through despite the arrival of GRP negotiators in Noordwijk in May and November 2017.
“The aforesaid actions of Duterte would have been enough bases for the NDFP to conclude that he is not at all interested in peace negotiations,” Sison said.
The CPP founder said the NDFP persevered and worked out a number of agreements with GRP representatives in back channel talks from March to June 2018, due in great part to the demands of peace advocates to remain on the negotiating table.
“The most important of these would have constituted the Interim Peace Agreement at the resumption of formal talks in Oslo from June 28 to 30,” Sison said.
The real reasons
Sison said the AFP and PNP’s wish to carry out to the end of 2018 their campaign plan to supposedly to finish off the NPA as well as to change the venue of peace talks to Manila are the real reasons why Duterte has canceled the resumption of peace talks in Oslo.
The change of venue is so that Duterte and the military can put the NDFP under their control, surveillance duress and manipulation, Sison said.
He said Ðuterte pretends to review in three months the entire process and all agreements in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations since 1992.
“By all indications, he will try to change the entire peace process and waste previous agreements. At any rate, he will try to impose on the NDFP changes that the NDFP will certainly reject,” he explained. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
The reported surrender of a legendary tribal leader last June 9 in Talaingod, Davao del Norte was an orchestrated gathering by the military that victimized the ailing and elderly chieftain, Lumad organizations and leaders said.
Lumad organizations Salupongan Ta ‘Tanu Igkanugon and PASAKA Confederation of Lumad Organizations in Southern Mindanao Region said Datu Guibang Apoga, who led the Manobo’s successful resistance against logging and mining operations at the Pantaron Mountain Range, did not surrender nor spoke of giving up their struggle to defend their ancestral land.
“In his speech delivered at the assembly, Datu Guibang Apoga spoke of his desire for the Lumad schools to continue to serve his people. Owing to his failing health and increasing age, he spoke of what he perceived as his inadequacies as the tribe’s tribal chieftain,” Salupongan said in a statement.
“Nowhere in his brief discourse did he speak of surrendering his conviction nor did he endorse the demise of his tribe and his people,” the group added.
The 10th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army (IDPA) said Apoga was a member of the New People’s Army (NPA) who has defected to the military by turning over his M16 rifle to Brigadier General Ernesto C Torres Jr AFP, Commander of the 1003rd Brigade during the ceremony.
Five hundred Lumads witnessed the event, the military said.
“After more than two decades of being ‘out’ and having been legendary among his circle for his political efforts in supporting the NPA, Datu Gibang is now back to Nasilaban. His surrender would definitely hasten the clearing of areas in and around Talaingod from CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines) and NPA influence,” the 10th IDPA added.
Pasaka chairperson Kerlan Fanagel, however, said Apoga was lured into attending an assembly of about 150 Lumad only, orchestrated by the paramilitary group Alamara and the military.
Fanagel said Apoga was “hostaged and pressured” by the overwhelming presence of the military.
A downcast Datu Guibang presenting a rifle to a group of euphoric army officers. (Philippine Army photo)
“In his brief speech, Datu Guibang never said mining operations may already be allowed on Pantaron and their Lumad schools should already be closed,” Fanagel told Kodao, quoting Salupongan council officers and members present at the event.
Fanagel said Rural Missionaries of the Philippines paramedics tried to approach Apoga to give him a physical check up but the octogenarian chieftain was constantly surrounded by the military.
Fanagel added that based on the chieftain’s medical history, they suspect Apoga to be suffering from a kidney ailment.
Apoga and other Manobo chieftains in Talaingod launched a pangayaw (a tribal war) in 1993 to prevent logging operations by the Alcantara & Sons (Alsons) corporation.
Apoga and the other datu (chieftain) formed the Salupongan ‘Ta Igkanugon (Unity for the Defense of Ancestral Land) fought off Alsons’s private army and the military with native weapons and old rifles and won.
The government, however, ordered the arrest of Apoga and 25 other datus and have since been hunted by the military, until June 9.
Salupongan said the government has failed to sway its members by deceiving Apoga into attending a tribal assembly that turned into a fake surrender ceremony.
“[The government] has grown desperate in quelling our ranks in the last few months, first by pouring an overwhelming number of state forces in our lands by three Army battalions, second by campaigning for the closure of community schools and harassing community teachers, students and parents, and third by finagling Datu Guibang as a surrendered leader,” Salupongan said.
Apoga (center, third row) looking sullen as a military officer leads a collective reading of an oath. (Philippine Army photo)
Apoga’s fellow Talaingod chieftain, Bai Bibiyaon Ligkayan Bigkay said the military and the paramilitary Alamara used Apoga’s frail health and advanced age into “pressuring” him to a “staged surrender ceremony.”
In a statement, Bibiyaon rallied the Manobo people to remain unfaltering in defending the Pantaron Range, reminding them of their decades of resistance against military operations from Alsa Lumad and Alamara since the 1990s.
“Many more leaders from among our people who continue to suffer from hunger, government neglect and military abuses will rise to continue Salugpongan’s legacy of resistance. Hence, to all the Manobo and lumad people, our resolve must remain unfaltering like the Pantaron on which generations of our people have lived and depended on for generations,” Bibiyaon said.
“We must prevail for as long as the causes of our oppression continue to persist and deny us of the right to live with dignity,” Bibiyaon said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)