As far as the Philippines go, the life of a foreigner holds considerably more cachet than that of any Filipino. In fact, one foreigner's death is significantly more news worthy than a score of Filipino deaths. One might consider that the October 17th, 2011 killing of Father Fausto "Pops" Tentorio makes for an excellent case in point.
As I noted in a Fourth Quarter of 2011 entry, Father Pops was a Roman Catholic priest of the PIME, or Pontificium Institutum Missionum Exterarum Order. PIME priests traditionally missionise in distant and forlorn corners of the world. In Southeast Asia, "distant" and "forlorn" can be rather neatly summed up with just one word, "Mindanao." So it was that Father Pops, a native of Italy, came to find himself living in the municipality of Arakan, in North Cotabato Province. Ministering to Lumad (Hilltribesmen), he often found himself thick in the middle of the NPA Insurgency. Although it will naturally seem counter-intuitive to a great many people, the Philippine Church is more often than not squarely rooted on the Left of the political spectrum. With PIME's fondness for Liberation Theology it is really a no brainer.
Indeed, of three PIME priests murdered on Mindanao, two were killed for their support of the Maoist NPA. In the nearby municipality of Tulunan, Father Tullio Favali, another PIME priest from Italy, was shot to death on April 11th, 1985 in what is probably the nation's most famous murder. A CHDF (Civilian Home Defense Force) unit led by Norberto Manero Jr. had been paid by the municipal government of Tulunan to wrest control of outlying villages from the NPA by any means necessary. Chief among their targets was another PIME priest, Father Peter Geremiah, a man still spending his days working the Lumad in that general area.
When Geremiah did not materialise they focused their wrath on Father Favali. Although it was an extremely violent death by any measure, the circumastances have become mythologised, so warped with macabre fantasy that today, the media continues retelling the tale without an iota of fact checking. Why, everyone knows that the subhuman killer, Norberto Manero Jr., ate Father Favali's brains as a jeepney full of passengers rolled slowly through the intersection in stunned silence...except...that never took place. What certainly happened was that the young Italian priest lost his life in a brutal, extant counterinsurgency campaign. Like Father Pops, Father Favalli's death reverberated not only throughout the Philippines, but throughout the world.
Both slain priests were lionised as martyrs, not only by the Pope, but by secular pundits as well.Their deaths are still discussed by disparate segments of society. It isnt difficult at all to find recognition of either man, or of their personal missions in life. But what of Father Jesus Reynaldo "Rey" Roda? Father Rey, a Roman Catholic priest of the OMI (Oblates of Mary the Immaculate), brutally murdered on Tawi Tawi by Abu Sayyaf in 2008, received a couple of lines in most Philippine news outlet releases, and as for the Pope, Father Rey merely warranted two short paragraphs from a Papal Secretary, Cardinal Tercisio Bertune. Forget about foreign media outlets...Of course, it is narutal that Westerners will care more about events involving other Westerners, just as Manila-based newspapers report in DWI (drunk driving) arrests involving overseas Filipinos in another hemisphere. The curious aspect though, is that Filipinos (usually) could not care less about the brutal bludgeoning and then point blank shooting of a young Filipino priest on a Church altar, a man who disdained all secular politics and did not try to save non-Catholic souls, but will spend countless time and energy over a foreigner who blatantly supported the Maoist Insurgency...and thereby stood neck deep in innocent blood.
To recall, on October 17th, 2011, Father Pops, had walked out of his rectory in Arakan's Our Lady of Perpetual Help, andbwas just getting himself fastened into his Suzuki SUV when a blue Honda Wave motorcycle stopped at the end of the rectory's dirt driveway. A man got off the back of the motorcycle, without removing his helmet, and quickly walked 50 meters down the driveway to the rectory carport. Once he was two meters away from Father Tentorio, now sitting in his SUV, the man removed his helmet, placed it in his left hand, took a 9MM pistole from his waistband and raising his arm, shot the priest once in the abdomen with a standard ballpeen round. Quickly firing six more ballpeen rounds in quick succession, all between the waist and collar bone, he then slowly fired two hollow point rounds into the priest's chest from right next to the body, finally training his pistol on the now dead priest's mouth where he fired a coup de grace with a hollow point.
Placing his helmet back on his head, the gunman then ran back up the driveway to the still idling motorcycle, whose dtiver had been nervously scanning the area from behind his shaded helmet visor. The motorcycle quickly took off as soon as the gunman jumped back aboard.
As I have covered the aftermath of Father Tentorio's killing in that aforementioned Fourth Quarter of 2011 entry, I will simply move along to the meat and potatoes of THIS post, the naming of six suspects and the arrest of one of those men; Without a clue as to who might have committed the killing, but with everybody pointing fingers at each other, the Department of Justice, or DOJ, leaned on the Philippines' top law enforcement body, the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), to find the killers (as it always has been assumed that there was a cabal behind the murder).
Within days, NBI-12 (NBI Region 12) decided on its "master plan." Deploying undercover agents as street vendors and mining middlemen, ore handlers, they flooded the municipality of Arakan in hopes of gleaning shreds of intelligence. It was a pair of undercover agents posing as ore handlers seeking a possible mining investment in Barangay Kulaman Valley that led to "paydirt," at least in the NBI's version of events. As in any Lumad community, nothing worth happening takes place without the express approval of tribal chiefs, and moreover, tribal elders. In Kuluman Valley, tge dominant tribe is the Teduray, and so the two NBI agents cum mining investors presented themselves to Teduray tribal elders.
Like any good conmen, the "mining investors" dangled promises of riches, infrastructure, and jobs in front of the Yeduray elders and soon found themselves the esteemed guests of the Ato Clan. Shuffled from house to house, the two NBI agents familiarised themselves with the Teduray Community in Kulaman. On December 27th, 2011, the two agents began staying in the household of Jimmy Ato, 31, his 20 year old wife Ritchie, and their pair of toddlers in that barangay's Sitio Ikaw Ikaw. What happened next is highly debatable depending upon who offers up the narrative.
According to the NBI, as the agents settled into the home of Jimmy Ato, another undercover agent, who had been posing as a vendor of Balut (the quinessential Philippine street food, fertilised duck eggs), communicated to the "mining iinvestors" that Jimmy Ato had been running his mouth about having killed Father Tentorio. According to this intelligence, Ato had even remarked that he had found himself so suprised to discover how easy it was to kill a priest. Curiously, this "factoid" did not serve as the basis of an actual criminal investigation. Logically, it would have beena simple endeavour to gain a witness statement (affadavit) and use it as the raison d'etre in an arrest watrant for the ptiest's murder. Instead, before daybreak, on December 29th, both undercover agents pulled 45 caliber pistols on Jimmy Ato as the hapless men slept on the floor beside his young wife and children, having given the best acvomidations in the home to the two "guests," as he had been directed to by duped tribal elders.
As Ritchie and two toddlers watched in horror, the two guests frog matched Jimmy out the front door and began the slow descent to the barangay's only road. Alerted by Ritchie's desperate pleas neighbours rushed to the downslope,trail to try and plead with the two armed men. Identifying themselves as NBI agebts the two men warned onlookers not to intervene lest they too end up marching down the mountainside. Among the fearful onlookers were Ato Clansmen whobrushed to inform Jimmy's brother, Roberto Ato.
Just as the two NBI agents forced Jimmy Ato onto the roadway for the long march into the barangay propet, and their pre-arranged transportation, sniper fire forced the agents, and their prisoner, to take cover behind some roadside boulders. Roberto Ato led several clansmen in an attempt to save Jimmy Ato from what to those present, was still an unknown fate. Often times attackers on Mindabao present themselves as PNP (Philippine National Police), AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), and yes, NBI agents. Without identification, paperwork, or corroborative evide.ce, the two men escorting Jimmy Ato could be anybody...anybody with semi-automatic pistols trained on their loved one.
After nearly two hours of sporadic exchanges of gunfire, the two NBI agents and their prisoner Jimmy Ato were extricated safely by an NBI convoy that had been alerted by cellphone by one of the beleagured arresting agents. Owing to the sensitive nature of the crime, protocol was bypassed and Ato was driven not to NBI-12 Headquarters, but instead was directly taken to NBI-10 Headquarters, in Cagayan del Oro City. Processed, he was denied proper counsel as qell ad a chance to contact anybody, and was quickly bundled aboard an AFP AC130 transport on a direct flight to Manila. It was at NBI National Headquarters that Jimmy Ato first learned exactly what he faced.
To be continued in "Part 2"
No comments:
Post a Comment