By Helaena Rhyne Pontillas
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Human rights group Karapatan-Southern Tagalog expressed condemnation over the harassment they experienced from Aug. 9 to 11 as they conducted a fact-finding mission in Roxas, Oriental Mindoro.  

The mission was conducted in response to the reports of militarization in rural and ancestral lands, and to document violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Instead, the mission team were subjected to surveillance, intimidation, and threats.

According to the account of the group on Aug. 9, they were holding a peaceful silent protest outside Lordville Funeral Services when a police officer threatened to shoot them. They were calling for the release of the bodies of two alleged members of the New People’s Army to their families. Karapatan-ST said the two were killed in what the military claimed to be an encounter in Barangay Happy Valley in Roxas. Soldiers from the 203rd Infantry Brigade blocked their movement and aimed their firearms at the group. The military also played red-tagging messages over loudspeakers and showed videos targeting activists and human rights defenders. In the midst of the commotion, one victim’s body was taken without the family’s consent or any independent witnesses present.

Later that evening, the Sangguniang Kabataan or local youth council imposed a curfew without any official municipal order, forcing the team to leave the premises. While they were gone, the soldiers took the second victim’s body. The group said local youth council members, alongside criminology and ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) students, were used by the Armed Forces of the Philippines for intelligence work and red-tagging activities.

“The military authority in Roxas only endangers the lives of the people. Subjecting the citizens and local government of Roxas into their mischievous acts affirms the deliberate use of power and the de-facto martial law,” said Ida Palo, Karapatan Southern Tagalog paralegal. “It succumbs to the very own rights of the people, like the remains of those killed by their hands,” Palo added. 

Meanwhile in his privilege speech, ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio also condemned the incident saying that this is a part of a broader pattern of impunity, noting that it occurred just days before the country hosts the Asia Pacific Regional Conference on International Humanitarian Law (IHL). 

“What meaning does it have for the Philippines to present itself as a champion of International Humanitarian Law abroad, when our own farms and indigenous communities, those rights are being trampled on?” he asked.

Tinio cited several killings documented by Karapatan, including the shooting of farmer Peter Agudes in his own field in Capiz; the killing of Renato and Reymark Gabac in Paranas, Samar; the case of Alberto Piaduche, a farmer in Negros, who was suffocated with a plastic bag over his head and beaten by soldiers until his eye bled; and the case of Jumong Dayano, a 16-year-old farmer from Guilhulngan, Negros Oriental, who was hacked with a sickle by a soldier; and recently the killing of 50-year old farmer Juan Sumilhig in Occidental Mindoro on Aug. 1 in Mindoro Occidental.

Tinio added that communities such as the Dumagat-Remuntado of Rizal have been barred from practicing their civil rights such as joining peaceful protests against Kaliwa Dam and was threatened with arrest, had their indigenous organization shut down, prohibited from receiving visitors or aid from non government organizations and red-tagged as subversives. In Occidental Mindoro, Mangyan-Iraya of Sitio Malatabako and Abra de Ilog have endured more than a year of hamletting, food blockades, and displacement from their ancestral land due to the fencing of the area Pieceland Corporation with police and military backing, alongside the filling of multiple criminal cases to force them out.

The harassment of the fact-finding mission team, Tinio argued, is meant to silence documentation and shield perpetrators from accountability. “If the government itself is the violator, where can the victims turn for justice?” he asked. He urged the state forces to end militarization in ancestral lands. 

Karapatan-ST joined Tinio in calling for a swift and independent investigation into the military operation, the illegal removal of the victims’ remains, and the harassment of the fact-finding team. (AMU, RVO)