A graveyard’s peace drapes the
countrysides of Bicol. The muteness of peasant huts, the hush of wary gestures
in the farms, the tautness of villagers’ faces – all these bespeak the dread
that has crept across the barrios of the region. This silence is the dark peace
of Oplan Bayanihan.
Now entering its third year, the
government’s “internal peace and security plan” (a moderation for
“counter-insurgency”), patterned after the US Counterinsurgency Guide of 2009,
has for its ultimate objective the reduction
of the “capabilities of internal armed threats…to a level that they can no
longer threaten the stability of the state and civil authorities can ensure the
safety and well-being of the Filipino people.” In the Bicol region, with the
government having only one formidable armed opponent, Oplan Bayanihan means to
“render the NPA irrelevant.” The Philippine Army’s 9th Infantry
Division initiates the campaign in the region.
For the
Bicolano masses however, Oplan Bayanihan only means thus: Terror and Deceit, a two-pronged
spear of brutality and psywar being thrust at the people leading to further
impoverishment in a land already belonging to the country’s four poorest
regions.
Terror
and Deceit: A Predicament in Pairs
In the province of Albay, Oplan
Bayanihan’s misleading “Peace and Development” operations have for more than
two years been ravaging the interiors of Guinobatan town, and has turned a
cluster of villages in the second district into a seemingly enormous military
complex with large deployment of Philippine Army troops and CAFGU
paramilitaries. These state forces, sustained by public money, essentially come
to be private security forces for companies undertaking the construction of an
international airport, and also of major eco-tourism and residential projects
in the area.
In Camarines Norte, the 49th
Infantry Battalion’s “Peace and Development Teams” (PDTs) disrupt the once
tranquil lives of the people of Labo town’s 13 barrios – Domagmang, Malaya,
Malibago, Malatap, Anameam, Macogon, Bagong Silang II, Pag-asa, Maligaya,
Calabasa, Excivan, Daguit, and Maot.
Likewise, 12 villages in the town of
Bato in Camarines Sur likewise suffer the afflictions of military presence. The
villages of Payak, Pagatpatan, Sooc, Cotmon, Cristo Rey, Coguit, Mangga,
Lubong, Salvacion, Cawacagan, Del Rosario, and Caricot have also been rounded
up by the Philippine Army’s 42nd IB for Oplan Bayanihan’s storm of
repression.
Villages in the towns of San Miguel,
San Andres, and Virac in Catanduanes province share the same fate, as well as
those in the boundaries of Bulusan and Barcelona towns in the province of
Sorsogon, who have soldiers from the 31st IB occupying their
barangays since September of 2012.
Needless to say, the AFP’s dismal human rights
record makes its prolonged presence troubling on the part of villagers. A mere
day of government soldiers raking through the countryside already spells fear
and anxiety on the farmers to go to their lands, they being accosted with
brusque, physical harm, and assaults to their livelihoods such as the stealing of
crops and fowls from unguarded farms - thus equating military operations to loss
of livelihoods.
But to simply paint a picture of
menacing military patrols in the hinterlands of rural villages is to downplay the
intent of Oplan Bayanihan’s focused terror. Despite the 9th ID’s
platitudes on “peace and development” and “respect for human rights”, the
opposite is what has been taking place. Oplan Bayanihan’s so-called
“people-centered approach” is designed to impress upon the peasants the harsh
consequences of advocating or supporting just struggles for land, livelihood,
and other democratic rights and interests. PDTs – on the average a squad of soldiers
trained in combat, intelligence, and psywar – direct their brunt primarily on
peasants and members of progressive organizations in the barrios whom they
suspect to be supporters of the New People’s Army (NPA).
Various forms of human rights
violations assail the victims of PDTs. From intimidation to physical harm, from
illegal detention to unlawful interrogation, from torture to murder – soldiers
of the 9th ID have not run out of methods in repressing Bicolano
masses. In the villages of Guinobatan alone, no less than 80 individuals fell
prey to the 2nd IB's PDTs just on its first month in July to August of
2011.
Emelio Odeña, a village watchman of Barangay Balite,
had a knife shoved at him by a Sgt. Mariano. Novo Otico of Barangay Pood was
hit in the head and legs while under interrogation. Fellow villager Oscar
Pardines was hit with a rifle’s butt and was knocked in the stomach by his
interrogators led by a Corporal Carpio. Village officials of Bololo and
Cabaloaon were harassed into withdrawing their opposition to the PDTs’
presence, and were forced to provide materials and construct dwellings for
soldiers. Rodrigo Bosquellos, also of Barangay Balite, was interrogated and illegally
detained for seven hours, during which he was also denied any legal counsel and
even food. Eli Oguis, a village councilman of Cabaloaon,
whom the 2nd IB put under severe interrogation in August 2011, was later
found headless in the muds. The list of savagery displayed by the 2nd
IB in Albay goes on but is also matched elsewhere in the region where Oplan
Bayanihan’s PDTs operate.
And as if all these were not terroristic enough, the Philippine Army’s
9th ID has even placed itself in the people’s midst – stockpiling
weapons and occupying public structures as their barracks, and subjugating the
people in their own locales of comfort and fellowships. AFP Chief of Staff Lt.
Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, Oplan Bayanihan’s chief architect, must have perfected
in his military experience the thrashing of a people’s dignity that he and his
men are now committing human rights violations – the intimidations and
tortures, the unlawful detentions and cruelties – the crushing of a people’s
spirits – inside barangay halls, daycare centers, chapels, and other public
establishments.
All of these makes one thing very clear: that the government’s armed
forces have the least respect for International Humanitarian Law which puts a
premium on the protection and security of civilians in times of armed conflict;
that certainly, it is not the poor and marginalized people in the region or
elsewhere that they have come for to serve and protect.
With the 9th Infantry Division adept in all the
functions of a repressive tool, Bicol’s countrysides would most likely
illustrate the demise of democratic aspirations, with 9th ID troops
posturing as butchers, but with once stifled Bicolano masses steadily breaking
away from their fetters.
If it is peace the 9th
Infantry Division aims to achieve in Oplan Bayanihan, then it has certainly
succeeded in doing so, if the peace it wants is the deadening of villages and
the quelling of people’s aspirations.
For indeed, in over two years of the
AFP’s campaign, it has not only attacked the people through brute force. It has
also pursued to deflect the minds of villagers away from the roots of poverty
and conflict, and has strived to distort the people’s thinking towards Oplan
Bayanihan’s incredible logic.
Oplan Bayanihan absurdly believes that
people are poor only because they believe that they are poor. Their hardship is only caused by “perceptions
of relative deprivation”, and is therefore no reason to protest or take up arms.
Oplan Bayanihan clearly insults the people’s judgement in dispelling concrete
socio-economic and socio-political concerns such as landlessness, unemployment,
and injustice as motivations for dissent and armed resistance. Nonetheless,
counter-insurgency fanatics aim to simply change such “perceptions of relative
deprivation” through “winning the hearts and minds” of a target community.
Psywar:
Altering “Perceptions”
It is in this twisted reasoning that
Peace and Development Teams (PDTs) carry out their other tasks. Apart from
being initiators of brutality, another focal mission of PDTs is the bombardment
of diversionary schemes and even outright lies in an attempt to clear the
people’s minds of the root causes of their hardships and just means of
attaining progress.
In PDT-infested villages, it is
commonplace for soldiers to initiate merry-making activities such as basketball
tournaments, village dances and drinking sessions as though these revelries could
mask the despondency of hunger that befall peasant homes. Soldiers go around
with their paintbrushes beautifying waiting sheds and barangay halls, participating
in token tree-planting activities, as if colors could enhance the centuries-old
crudeness of production relations in the farms. Soldiers would invite residents
in a “boodle-fight” meal, and transfer meager amounts of cellphone loads to
students, as though these one-time gestures could provide education for the
youth. Truly, the deception of Oplan Bayanihan is as plain as a rabid dog
putting on a clown’s face.
Starker forms of psywar are likewise
employed. During interrogations, victims are coerced into betraying their
neighbors, with PDT operators sowing intrigues in order to ruin the harmonious
relationships among villagers. Those who are subjected to questioning are also photographed
while being forced to hold rifles, and are made to sign blank sheets of papers.
These papers would later turn out to be either waivers of human rights
violations, or signed surrender documents. It is noteworthy to add that
military officials make a living out of misrepresenting civilians as New People’s
Army (NPA) rebel returnees. Government funds supposedly allocated for such are easily
pocketed by officers, with scores of peasants from each PDT-infested village being
paraded as “former NPA rebels”.
Lastly, Oplan Bayanihan implements
murder as the darkest of methods in instilling in the minds of the people to cast
off any thought of dissent. As in the deaths of Eli Oguis, Romero Octavo, and Dalmacio dela Punta, their killers intend to ram the grim message head-on. Also, a
familiar threat that has apparently become a standard operating procedure for
PDT operations resonates in village round ups across the region: “Kapag
inabutan namin ang mga NPA sa bahay ninyo, idadamay namin kayo!” (If we chance upon NPAs in your homes,
you will not be spared!)
And alas, such wickedness has resulted
in the massacre of the Mancera family in Labo town in February of 2012, when
indeed, a platoon of the 49th IB under First Lieutenant Alfie Lee killed
two schoolboys and their father, and left their sister severely wounded. Such
was also the fate of the Lotino family in Daraga town in Albay. Accused of
being NPA supporters, village councilman Wenifredo Lotino was killed together
with his wife and a nephew, and the Lotinos’ daughter suffering serious gunshot
wounds. In Libmanan town in Camarines Sur, likewise suspected of supporting the
NPA, three members of the Bico family, along with their employee, were killed
by masked soldiers. Two other witnesses were also killed.
Completing the policy of murder would
be the posse of AFP propagandists scurrying towards media organizations to peddle
their lies. Oplan Bayanihan being a barrage of brutality and grand psywar,
military spokespersons would instinctively disown their crimes and point to the
NPA. Common too are assertions that the civilian victims are NPA rebels, or
that they were caught in crossfires. Still frequently driveled is to pass off
the murders as common crimes, obscuring the methodization of these state
murders.
But deceit is an embarrassment shoved in
the AFP’s face. Testimonies and evidences belie the falsehoods that accompany
each killing, attesting even more to the inclusion of murders in Oplan
Bayanihan’s menu. In the extra-judicial killing of Bayan Muna member Rodel
Estrellado on February 25, 2011, military reports of his death were already
brandished in the media three hours earlier than his abduction which was
witnessed by the public. In Cabaloaon
councilman Ely Oguis’ case, an entanglement
of lies caught military spokespersons confused as to which claim to sustain. One
military unit claimed that Oguis was killed in an encounter. Another said that
he was killed by the NPA for not paying taxes. Still another declared that he
was an NPA tax collector killed by his comrades for not remitting his
collections. Ely Oguis was in fact last seen in the company of soldiers before
his death, and neighbors disprove the military’s claim of a supposed encounter
between government forces and NPA rebels. In Bulan town in Sorsogon province, no
less than Cesar Habla’s family asserts that the poor farmer was killed in their
presence while tending to their copra production, contrary to the 8th
Scout Ranger Company’s media announcement that Habla died in an encounter with
rebels.
What peace indeed. What tranquility
these spell for a state that tolerates no tinge of dissent. Surely, landlords
in government need no longer worry about militant peasant organizations legitimately
demanding lands and agricultural advancement. Capitalist lawmakers need no
longer worry about militant organizations protesting unemployment and loss of
livelihoods. The state has at its disposal the ferocity and duplicity of Oplan
Bayanihan, thanks to the 9th Infantry Division, to subdue a discontented
people.
Peace based on justice
But decades of struggle against
repressive regimes in succession have sharpened the critical minds of the
people and have toughened their resolve. Experience has equipped the masses to
determine the anti-people natures of one counter-insurgency campaign after
another. And this is Oplan Bayanihan’s fundamental weakness – it fails to win
the support of the people because it does not solve age-old problems of
landlessness, grinding poverty, and injustice.
More importantly, Oplan Bayanihan is
faced with a resolute fight. Early on into the PDTs’ onslaught, the people of
Albay staged a series of wide protests condemning Oplan Bayanihan and demanding
the pull-out of the PDTs. A significant aspect of these protests, aside from
being sustained, is the gathering of collective support from various parts of
the region. The people’s will to carry on with their anti-militarization
campaign warms up even more as they are joined by fellow peasants across the
region. These supporters may be communities also suffering from the ills of Oplan
Bayanihan, or those in solidarity with the struggles of their class.
The force of a people drawn together paid
off when the series of protests resulted in the Albay Provincial Board issuing
a resolution requiring the PDTs to vacate public establishments. Also, the
Regional Office of the Commission on Human Rights was urged by these mobilizations to conduct an
investigation which led to calling for an end to the grave human rights
violations being committed by the 2nd IB.
Camarines Norte’s 12 villages also
enjoyed the support from different sectors across Bicol when a regional Fact
Finding Mission was conducted in May 2012 to further expose the atrocities
committed by the 49th IB. Also in October of 2012, a regional
mobilization marched along the streets of the province’ capital to demand from
the government the punishment and pull-out of the 49th IB from the
villages.
Much is still to be done, as even if
the 2nd IB has been compelled to build their own barracks, the
soldiers continue to return to public facilities in blatant disregard of lawful decisions. Much is still to be done, as the 49th IB continues to occupy 13 barrios in Labo, and as the rest of Bicol’s countrysides continue to
swell with PDTs.
While
Oplan Bayanihan has three more years to go, it’s demise has already
been declared by the people - a demise assured not only by Oplan
Bayanihan’s inherent flaws, but most of
all, by the people’s resolve to further strengthen their ranks and
sustain the
fight against this deadly counter-insurgency campaign alongside
continuing
struggles for land, livelihood, and justice. ###
