This is part 2 of a four part entry and opens on page 12 pf a 35 page report. As I have noted in other Human Rights Watch, or HRW-centric entries, I don't hold a very high opinion on the NGO. They deal most often in uncoroborrated accusation and wholesale innuendo. In addition they portray themselves as non-partisan and in reality are anything but. In any event, this particular report offers a glimpse into Eastern Mindanao, the least populated part of Mindanao and therefore little known even by most Mindanowans. The issues discussed in the report, paramilitaries involved in illegal logging and illegal mining, serving as private muscle for local politicians are all things that are sadly, just as real today as they were nearly two decades ago when this report was published.
Showing how inadequate the late Corazon "Cory" Aquino was as a leader, and how far out of her element the poor woman was, we have the following nugget, gleaned from then-President Aquino's unforgettable speech at the Philippine Military Academy in 1992...
******************************************************************************************************
pp12
The New People's Army and Human Rights
On February 16, 1992, a week before the sixth anniversary of her accession to office, Aquino hailed "a shining moment in our history," claiming "the defeat of all threat groups" under her Administration. "We broke the back of the Communist Insurgency," she told graduates of the Philippine Military Academy, the country's elite military college.
On the same day, some 300 rebels armed with mortars and machineguns ambushed and killed 47 soldiers in a remote logging tract in the province of Surigao del Sur, the Government's single largest battlefield loss in years. Survivors said the rebels systematically executed wounded soldiers with the rank of sergeant and above. Some analysts said that the attack demonstrated that the insurgency, despite arrests of dozens of leaders in the past five years, would continue to be a force to contend with for several years.
An estimated 17,000 fulltime New People's Army rebels were still believed to be operating in the Philippines in early 1992, down from a high of 26,000 in mid-1988. But while the number of armed rebels has declined, the intensity and number of military-rebel encounters in 1991 matched 1990, apparently due to President Aquino's directive that the insurgency be crushed by the end of her term.
Both sides in the conflict commit abuses, but it is difficult to confirm most reports of NPA abuses. There continued to be reports if killings and hostage taking if unarmed civilians, and at least one foreigner, an American, continued to ve held in a 1990 kidnapping. The source of information is usually the military, and attacks most often occur in remote areas that
are sealed off to investigators because of "ongoing military operations." Reports of rebel abuses furnished by the military are the headline stock-in-fare of some two dozen provincial tabloids in Mindanao, but poorly paid news reporters rarely investigate and cinfirm stories. In listing NPA "atrocities," moreover, the military generally fails to distinguish between NPA attacks on soldiers or paramilitary units, which are acts of war, and attacks on civilians not involved in hostilities. For their part, non-governmental human rights groups in the Philippines, do not investigate reports of human rights abuses of NPA abuses, saying that it is the perogative of the Government to investigate rebel violations. This has been a contentious issue in the Philippines, leading members of the military and the Commision on Human Rights to label non-governmental human rights groups "anti-Government" or "sympathetic to the NPA."
Human Rights Watch has confirmedome instances of human rights violations by rebel forces, and these are noted where there is a direct link to CAFGU abuses that are the focus of this report.
pp13
Mindanao: A Laboratory of Counterinsurgency
(a historical overview and geopolitical sketch that is redundant to the overall content- Raki)
pp14
NPA in Mindanao
From the early 1970s through the mid-1980s, most of Mindanao was fertile ground for the expansion of the New People's Army (NPA). The rebels have drawn recruits from among the ranks of landless peasants, plantation and factory workers paid sub-survival wages, and indigenous communities displaced from their lands by lowland encroachment and agro-industrial development projects. Despite grisly purges and other violent excesses by the rebels in the early and mid-1980s, which weakened support among urban intellectuals and among the general population in Western and Southern Mindanao, the armed insurgency continued to launch frequent attacks on military and economic targets in several central and eastern provinces in early 1992.
Military officials said roughly 700 armed rebels roamed the mountainous, heabily forested region of the Mt.Andap Valley, including the eastern half of Agusan del Sur Province and most of the province of Surigao del Sur. They declared Agusan del Sur and Surigao del Sur Provinces as the "hotbed" of insurgency in Mindanao and promised to "crush" insurgency there by 1992. The commander of the NPA in Mt.Andap Valley is reportedly the rebel priest, Father Frank Navarro. Targets of large scale rebel attacks in 1991 have included military detachments, jails, and commonly...
pp15
...municipal hall buildings. Members of the paramilitary CAFGU, particularly those posted in remote communities, have also often neen the target of NPA attack.
Scattered, smaller rebel commands were reportedly operating in other regions of Mindanao in early 1992. Encounters were frequently reported in the forested regions of western Agusan del Sur and just south of the Agusan del Sur border, in the province of Davao del Norte. In the southern provinces of South Cotabato, Davao del Sur, and Davao del Norte, an estimated 200 to 300 rebels continue to strikeat military and police targers, usually in operations intended to capture arms, and at "economic" targets, such as logging and mining firms. In Davao del Norte, nine civilians and two CAFGU were killed in an ambush of a passenger jeep. The NPA later issued a public apology. They wrote that the NPA would "investigate" to determine those responsible and punish them (July, 1991).
pp16
Militia Abuses in Areas of Ongoing Military Operations
In 1991 and early 1992, most military operations in Mindanao were taking place in two provinces, Agusan del Sur and Surigao del Sur. These are forested, mountainous regions peopled by unassimilated tribal minorities and by the newest, poorest migrant farmers. It is in these areas, remote from the public eye- and from public accountability- that most human rights abuses are taking place today.
The two neighboring provinces, located in the northeast part of the island, became the focus if a much-publicized military campaign in 1991. Between April and May 1991, more than 5,000 individuals fled to town centers from 18 villages around San Luis in Agusan del Sur and around Lianga and Tandag in Surigao del Sur because of military and NPA violence, In November 1991, Armed Forces chief General Lisandro Abadia ordered that additional troops be deployed in the two provinces.
Human Rights Watch documented several killings and numerous beatings by CAFGU members in Agusan del Sur and Surigao del Sur. Most cases investigated involved militia members operating without direct military supervision. In addition, Human Rights Watch frequently heard that CAFGU members carried their military issue high powered rifles at all times, even when unsupervised, and out of uniform; this was confirmed several times by sight and in news reports of encounters. As the Laywers Committee for Human Rights noted in 1990, these findings are in violation of "the intent, if not the letter, of Executive Order no.264 and the CAFGU regulations (LCHR "Out of Control" pp121).
Military guidelines mandate that the CAFGU is primarily responsible for defense and peacekeeping functions in areas already "cleared" by combat operations. But local human rights monitors and victims reported that CAFGU members also played a role in front line combat operations. CAFGU were also used as informants to identify subversives in local communities. Several cases investigated below indicate that CAFGU members pervert their role as informants by identifying as "subersives" individuals against whom they have a personal grudge.
In other cases, random violence by CAFGU members appeared to be in response to violence by the NPA. In remote areas targeted by rebel forces, CAFGU units appeared to be "sitting ducks" for NPA attacks, which were usually aimed at capturing arms. Because of their inferior numbers and training, the militiamen often handed over the arms immediately. Regional news reports often listed CAFGU among the casualties of military-NPA encounters. In one representative case, 150 guerillas attacked a CAFGU outpost of 30 in a remote village outside San Miguel, Surigao del Sur on June 25, 1991. Two CAFGUs were killed, one wounded and two taken hostage. The following day, one of the CAFGU involved in the encounter beat and threatened three residents, apparently arbitrarily.
Abuses and Impunity
Victims of CAFGU abuses rarely go to the military to seek redress for maltreatment. As one peasant cooperative leader in San Miguel who has been threatened and harrassed countless times over the past five years explained, local residents often live in fear of the CAFGU and his commanding officer. The victims usually know the CAFGU member personally because he lives in the community. Once complaints are filed, it may take a long time, if ever, before the perpetrator is disarmed.
pp17
In a few recent cases, victims filed cases with the Commission on Human Rights in Surigao del Sur or the provincial prosecutor. However, Human Rights Watch learned of only two cases in 1990 and 1991 where abusive CAFGU members, including one charged with murder, were discharged from active duty. In neither case was the militia member prosecuted by the courts. The same individuals continued to carry firearms freely, instiling fear in the community. In San Luis, human rights victims and their families continued to live in evacuation centers because of fear of returning to their homes.
CAFGU Abuses in San Luis
Along the banks of the Maasam River lies a forested, sparsely populated land liscenced to and logged by several large logging companies. The western banks are home to the Banwa'on Tribe, a non-literate, non-assimilated ethnic group. North of the Banwa'on areas, extending 15 miles to the town of Esperanza, lives another tribe called the Higaonon. To the south, around the municipality of La Paz, a community of Manobos live. The Higaonon and Manobo were both said to be interested in taking over some of the Banwa'on lands, which has resulted in a state of simmering tribal conflict since 1985.
The local tribal communities subsist on traditional slash and burn farming, hunting, fishing, and more recently, small scale logging. The Banwa'on territory is the most remote of the three tribal communities, accessible only by river, and more recently, by a single dirt logging road. By "gakit," or raft, the trip from the Banwa'on areas to the market center, Kalilid, takes about three days. Until recently, the people there had no schools, clinics, or other contact with government. All government services were located downstream east of the Maasam River in the largely Visayan population center. The Catholic Church, however, had built a small primary school and a health clinic for the Banwa'on, and acted as an advocate for the residents there.
Since the mid-1980s, however, the Banwa'on and other tribes have come to know the military very well. The forests along the Maasam River have been a refuge for the New People's Army, and both the NPA and the military have tried to engage the two tribal communities in the conflict. The Government , for its part, has had limited success. In 1985, under the leadership of a Higaonon Mayor, Lavi Manpatilan, the Higaonon of Esperanza signed up with the CHDF in large numbers. The Manobo also joined CHDF units. However, most of the Banwa'on of the lower Maasam River forests refused.
Since then local church workers and tribal leaders said the military has intermittingly attacked Banwa'on communities on suspicion if being rebels or rebel supporters. "We refused the (military's) guns because we do not want any part pf this war," explained Datu Mantalapuk, witness to killings described below. "But now, they accuse us of being rebels, and we are defenseless."
Some of the most vicious abuses have been committed by the Higaonon. In 1988, the training and arming of the Higaonon became the obsession of a renegade military commander, Lt.Col.Alexander Noble of the Army's 23IB, and Higaonon militia there are still known as the "Noble CAFGU." Noble staged a right wing revolt against the military in Agusan del Sur in July 1990. Upon his retreat to the forests west of Esperanza, he was joined by roughly 200 fiercely loyal Higaonon CAFGU, who defended Noble against capture for nearly two months against six Army and Marine battalions. However, when Noble eventually was captured and imprisoned, most of the CAFGU were pardoned. Within weeks they were re-activated under the command of the 36IB based in the town of Prosperidad.
In mid-1991, military forces, supported by the Esperanza-based CAFGU, intensified operations against the estimated 300 NPA in San Luis. The main target fell inside the Banwa'on areaa. Human Rights Groups said military operations had led more than 500 families from seven villages in the towns of San Luis and Prosperidad to seek refuge in town centers. Local military officials at the time were quoted as saying there were "some tolerable abuses"...
pp18
...by Government forces during operations.
Traditional avenues of justice long used to quell inter-tribal conflict, such as meetings of the local headmen, or "datu," appeared to have failed in 1991 with the entry of arbitrary military force. Armed with sophisticated guns and given liscence by ongoing military campaigns against supposed rebel hideouts in the area, the Higaonon and Manobo had become bolder in asserting claims over Banwa'on territory.
A leader of the Banwa'on Tribe believed his community was being attacked because of a land dispute:
"In 1988, Boy Mendoza, a Manobo logger, met me and said that he wanted to make the Banwa'on territory part of the Manobo Community Reservation, but I refused. He threatened me and said that our territory will be marked with 'red' if I refuse. After my refusal, a series of military operations happened in our place up to the present."
Human Rights Watch investigation of massacres in San Luis appeared to support the contention of local human rights groups and tribal advocates that Higaonon and Manobo CAFGU were perverting the aims of counterinsurgency to terrorize and evict civilian Banwa'on communities in 1991. Abuses documented by Human Rights Watch commonly occurred while residents were evacuating areas undergoing military operations, or during their return to their homes and farms. Human Rights Watch recorded first hand accounts of survivors of two killings of seven individuals by suspected CAFGU members in mid-1991. Three unconfirmed killings reported by local human rights monitors during the same period also pointed to CAFGU involvement.
In addition, Human Rights Watch documented several incidents where local residents were arrested without warrant and were maltreated by combined CAFGU and regular forces. Affadavits by several other victims suggested that warrantless arrest and mistreatment of civilians were routinely practiced during large scale military operations.
Four Killed in Kilabonog
Three survivors of multiple killings in Kilabonog, a western Banwa'on village of the town of San Luis in Agusan del Sur Province, described the attack by the Higaonon CAFGU which left four members of their extended family dead.
Mario Manliano, 25, recounted that the killings occurred at roughly 6AM on May 22, 1991 at a bend in the Maasam River, roughly 30 miles from the municipal center of Kalilid, San Luis.
An extended family of 30 individuals, all members of the Banwa'on Tribe living in a forest concession known as "Site I" and accessible only by river and by a single logging road, were traveling by river to Kalilid the morning of the incident. During the three days preceding, a large scale military operation had occurred near their community, including bombing and gunfire from helicopter gunships. As troops from the 36th and 8th Infantry Battalions approached their settlement, the group decided to evacuate downriver. At dusk on May 21, they packed their belongings on twi rafts and three longboats, and began floating in darkness downstream. The trip was expected to take three days. The group carried no weapons, and included at least fifteen children.
Just at dawn on the next morning, as the first longboat ridden by Betty Manlinawan was rounding a bend, shots rang out without warning from the right bank of the river. Manliano looked up, and saw ten men on the right bank, about 30 feet distant from the raft he was steering. They wore CAFGU uniforms and had automatic rifles outstretched at shoulder height; they fired ceaselessly for about five minutes. About 12 feet to his left he saw Cecil Salbuan, age 2, and Eding Hulibayan, age 50, as the two were struck by a single bullet that penetrated the chest of the child and then that of...
pp19
...the woman on whose lap he was sitting. After the first volley, Manliano and the others jumped into the river and fled into the dense forest.
For three days, he searched for the others until all of them were re-united. Then he returned to bury the bodies on May 25. Manliano found Manlinawan, age 20 and pregnant, with bullet wounds on her cheek, forehead, and right arm, shin, and lower back. Dodong Andres, 47, was shot on his forehead, upper left arm, both legs, and the back, with that bullet exiting his front chest. Three water buffalo and a dog were also found shot dead, and the group's clothes and a sack of rice were taken.
Manliano said he recognized all of the gunmen as Higaonon Tribesmen and as members of the CAFGU detachment based in Tagbilili, a village in the municipality of Esperanza. He knew them because he is a former member of a Civilian Home Defense Force detachment led by the brother of their CAFGU detachment leader. He identified the gunmen as Datu Manlinuhaw; Datu Mandumaging; Baldes Otasa; Manliwanay Mansalawag; Danilo Hulibayan; and six known only by their Higaonon first names, Tirso, Walah, Dalahutan, Biyasa, Gintulo, and Tagdiea. Two of the ten, Danilo Hulibayan and Baldes Otasa, are listed as active duty CAFGU and former CHDFs in the provincial governor's office; the others could not be confirmed because the victims did not know their Christian Names, under which they are offially listed.
Human Rights Watch interviewed two other eyewitnesses, Datu Mantalapuk and Ben Katanaw, whose accounts corroborated that of Manliano. The eyewitnesses said they believed the CAFGU were stationed there to seal off any escape from the areas where the military operations were going on.
The group fled to Kalilid, where they set up shelter on the outskirts of town and sought assistance by the Church in June, 1991. Also in June, Mantalapuk, who is the tribal leader, went with Manliano to the Mayor of San Luis, Jun Chua, to request that charges be filed against the perpetrators. Chua promised assistance and an investigation. Chua told Human Rights Watch that his Vice Mayor had investigated the case and submitted findings to the Provincial Governor's office in November 1991. As of January 1992, there was no record of any investigation at the Governor's office, nor had he heard of the case. The regional Commission on Human Rights (based six hours drive away in Cagayan del Oro City) also said they had no knowledge of the incident.
Although local clergy expressed fears for their security, the witnesses interviewed wished to testify in court. However, they said they needed financial and legal assistance. None was literate, nor were they at all familiar with the legal system; their poverty was so extreme that they had no funds to pay for personal travel to the provincial court in Prosperidad, about three hours away by jeep.
Killings in Tambo
A survivor of the Extra-Judicial Executions of three civilians in Tambo, a Manobo village in the west of Agusan del Sur, told Human Rights Watch the attack came whilr the family was eating dinner.
The witness, name withheld, said the attack occurred just at the beginning of dinner, after dark, at around 730PM pn September 23, 1991, in a tiny hillside community known only by the kilometer mark, "44," on the logging road that leads into the logging concession in San Luis municipality. At the time of the attack, there were seven people in the hut, a traditional Manobo hut set on six foot high stilts with a low roof but no enclosing walls, and they had just sat down to eat. On the floor they had lit a kerosene lamp, so the occupants were clearly visible from outside the hut. The nearest neighbor, however, is about a half mile away. None of them was armed.
That evening, the head of the household, Datu Mantalata, who was also the tribal leader of the community, had just returned from Kilometer Mark 60, about 11 miles west, where the manager of Ayala Logging Company was stationed. Mantalata had with him a box of provisions: sardines, candy, sugar, and biscuits, which he had just bought with some of the harvested rice. The others had just come in from a day harvesting rice in the fields nearby. Four people were seated in a line on the lower platform, and three on the slightly raised platform behind.
pp20
Suddenly, without any warning, the gunfire began "like firecrackers," the witness said. She was seated on the upper platform, to one side. The blast came seemingly from several directions at once, but it was dark, and the witnesses were unable to see the origin of the gunfire. During the firing, the witness said she immediately ducked over to lean on the body of the man next to her, a neighbor named Bensyo. She heard five gunshots.
When the survivors got up, they found the three men dead. The three appeared to be the targets, since none of the four others was even grazed. The dead included Datu Mamtalata, between 60 and 70 years old; his son, Aki Mantalata, 19 yeaea old, both of whom were seated on the lower, front platform at one end; and Bensyo Pacing, 55 years old, a neighbor who had come for a visit, and who was seated in the middle of the raised platform. Pacing died instantly from a bullet wound to the face; Aki Mantalata died of bullet wounds to the chest and crotch, apparently struck from a gunfire from under the floor; and one bullet struck Datu Mantalata in the underarm, penetrating the chest.
The survivors included the Datu's wife and 12 year old son, the Datu's invalid sister, a cousin and a neighbor. The group fled to the nearest neighbor's house, about a half mile away and over a hill. Upon returning the next morning, they found the shells of bullets used in Garand rifles, a type issued to local CAFGU recruits, and bootprints in three places; under the flooring, and on either side of the house.
Some relatives of the victims went to the nearby CAFGU detachment led by a former CHDF, Boy Mendoza, under the command of the 36th Infantry Battalion. At the time, Mendoza took photographs of the bodies and offered the corpses to be brought to the center of the barangay of Tambo, to the Baptist Church, despite family members' plea that the bodies be simply be buried near the house that same day.
The witness said she believed CAFGU members under the command of Boy Mendoza were responsible for the killings. The New People's Army is not active in the area, but the victims were suspected of being members of the "Alimaongs," or Manobo tribal warriors suspected of working with the NPA. She said the local CAFGU, who are generally tribespeople from the adjacent municipality of La Paz, are known to have committed abuses in the past.
The real motive for the killings, however, appeared to be a personal feud between Datu Mantalata and his neighbor, whose aons were CAFGU members. The neighbor had reportedly given Mantalata a water buffalo in exchange for chopping down the forest on his land. Because of the drought, however, the neighbor could not get transport for the lumber by the stream, and wanted his water buffalo returned. The week before the incident, several local CAFGU came and attempted to take Mantalata's water buffalo away by force, but failed . A teenage member of the local quasi-religious vigilante cult group, the "Pulhan" ("Red Ones," so called because they sport a red cloth on their heads or knife handles) told the witness a few days after the killings that Mantalata had been "under surveillance" by Boy Mendoza's CAFGU. On the day of the massacre, the teenager said, Mantalata was followed by a notorious local CAFGU from the Banwa'on Tribe known only as "Sammy."
The CAFGU and the Pulahans are known to be involved in small scale logging activities. The Pulahan believe that certain rituals protect them from being penetrated by bullets. Before going to battle with the New People's Army, they make signs of the cross on various parts of their bodies. According to the witness, many anti-Communist Pulahans had joined the local CAFGU forces as recruits or military assets.
The family reported the case to the San Luis Mayor, Chua, but as of January 1992, no case has been filed. The family of the victim had not returned to their home because of fears for their safety. Like witnesses in the previous case, they wanted to file a case, but had insufficient funds to travel the distance to the provincial courts in Prosperidad, at least a day's travel away.
***********************************************************************************************************
In my next and entry in this four part series I will finish the rest of this report.
Showing posts with label CHDF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CHDF. Show all posts
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Those that Came Before: The PIME Missionary Priests Before Father Fausto Tentorio
As I noted in my recent entry on the murder of Father Fausto Tentorio, there have been two other killings of priests belonging to Father Tentorio's order, PIME. As if those losses haven't been enough, PIME has also had two kidnappings as well. I thought it prudent to discuss those incidents in addition to Father Tentorio's recent murder, BUT, in not wanting to steer the focus away from Father Tentorio I had promised that I would discuss the four previous cases in another post, a companion piece to Father Tentorio's entry, and so I will begin to do so in this first post in a three part series.
PIME, or Pontificium Institum Missionum Exterarum (Latin for "The Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions") is an order based in Rome and dedicated to missionising amongst non-Catholics and for the most part they centre their efforts in far flung corners of the globe. The order resulted from the merging of two Italian seminarys:
1) The Lombard Seminary for Foreign Missions, in Milan, founded in 1850
2) The Pontifical Seminary of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul for Foreign Missions, in Rome, founded in 1871
The two seminarys were joined in 1926 and given the present name. Interestingly, the older of the two institutions, Lombard Seminary, deployed its first three missionary priests to two tiny islands in Oceania, Woodlark and Rook. Marist priests had preceded them there but had abandoned their mission due to the danger posed by the islands' then cannibalistic tribes. When Lombard Seminary deployed three priests there, two of them were served as lunch- literaly- for the islanders (one was beatified), and so the third swam for his life after which the mission was abandoned. One can see that from its earliest beginnings PIME missionary priests dove headfirst into dangerous locales and often didn't live to tell about it.
With the coming of Vatican II- which began in 1962 and ended in 1965- the Catholic Church was turned inside out. All of a sudden, Latin, the Church's liturgical tongue since its founding nearly two millenia before fell by the wayside. Whereas before, if lucky, parishoners in very large cities were serenaded by ethereal Gregorian Chants that nobody could understand, now priests were allowed to sing folktunes or even modern pop music, and even the most isolated village now haf a choir singing in its everyday language. The hellfire and brimstone pathos gave way to eucemenical luncheons and touchy feely- interfaith encounters and retreats. With this new, more liberal outlook, the Catholic Church began attracting a different class of priests, clergymen with a social consciousness. PIME had always taken a much more gentler path with potential converts. Where as Catholic priests entering heretofore uncontacted villages would first build a church, PIME felt that schools should come first along with concrete improvements in villager's everyday lives. Otherwise, one might attract converts but the conversions are almost always insincere and with little impetus would backslide and throw off their newly accepted faith.
As Vatican II began in Rome in 1962, the Church was undergoing a parallel catharsis in Latin America.
Theologians like the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez, and his contemporaries Juan Luis Segundo, Lucio Gerd, and many others had assimilated the thought provoking ideas that came out of Central Europe in the post-World War II Era. Men like Jacques Maritain, Henri de Lubac, and Yves Congar saw a Church that catered to the well to do but generally ignored the needy except when asking them to tithe, or else castigating them for "slovenly" habits. By 1964, at a conference in Brasil's Pertropolis, in Rio de Janeiro, Gustavo Gutierrez described his take on theology boldly as, "A critical reflection on praxis." Essentialy he was paraphrasing Karl Marx, albeit it very loosely. Marx had said, "Philosophers have explained the world; our task is to change it." Gutierrez was saying that theology wasn't a sterile ideology, it wasn't a theoretical construct. Rather, it was alive and vibrant. It was meant to be applied in everday life to correct institutional and systematic injustices that made the rich richer and kept the poor just as poor. Theologians should be active partners with the poor and disenfranchised in a struggle to transform the world for the betterment of all.
By 1968, three years after Vatican II ended, another, even bigger conference was held in Medellin, Colombia and months later, in 1969 the new theological variant had come into its own with a conference held in Cartigny, in Switzerland, that was entitled, "Toward a Theology of Liberation." As 1970 began a parallel movement within various Protestant Churches was developing along a very similar line with a convention held in Buenos Aries, Argentina. Christianity as a whole seemed to be moving in a general direction.
Although PIME pre-dated Vatican II by more than a century, the momentous changes within Christendom boosted the tiny order's cachet. The organisation began attracting many experienced clerics as well as the usual cannon fodder, freshly minted priests, just out of the PIME seminary. One of the more "experienced" priests was Father Tullio.
A native of Sacchetta di Sustinente, in Mantova, Italy in 1946, in an Italy wracked by the violence of the American Occupation at the close of World War II. Unable to properly support their son, Tullio's parents had him enter a seminary at age 9, in 1956. At age 15, in 1962, Tullio began studying fulltime for the priesthood and by 1965 had become a priest. Gaining his Ordination just as Vatican II finished, Father Tullio entered the priesthood and began his duties as an assistant parish priest in a non-descript farming village in his native Italy.
By the end of the 1960s Italy was suffering from political upheaval that effected every corner of society. Kidnapping was rampant and various armed groups capitalised on the anarchy. Groups like Brigate Rossi (Red Brigade), Lotta Continua (Contuious Struggle), Poetre Operaio Pisano, Poetre Operlo, and so on, made life in Northern Italy incredibly difficult but more than the threat to life and limb. Feeling unable to fufill the mandate of his new vocation he left the priesthood and spent the next several years on a journey of self discovery.
In 1978 he felt mature enough to consider re-committing his life to the priesthood, and so he spent a trial period in a PIME Formation House in the Italian town of Busto Arsizio. After long contemplation Tullio realised that he hadn't spent his formative years in the seminary and while he did pass his courses and gain ordination, he felt that the experience had been hollow. He resolved to re-enter the seminary, a PIME seminary, and re-learn all that he needed to in order to effectively minister to the poorest of the poor in isolated villages as opposed to overweight matrons in suburban Milan. On June 6th, 1981 Father Tullio Favali gained his second ordaination and became a PIME missioary priest.
Assigned to the town of Monza as an assistant parish priest in Christ the King parish. Though just getting his feet wet as a PIME cleric Tullio felt impatient and wanted to go abroad as soon as possible. The 35 year old priest badly wanted to be sent to Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately for Father Tullio however, Papua was then, as now, in conflict as the Papuans struggled for independence against Indonesia which had invaded it in 1969 and, eventually re-named it "Irin Jaya." More to the point, Indonesia, as a Muslim Nation, doesn't cotton to Christian missionaries, even when the target demographic is Animist. Instead his superiors deployed him to Chicago, in the United States. There Father Tullio attended a language school in order to learn English, seeing as how English is now seen as the lingua franca the world over.
Still unable to proceed to Papua Father Tullio was deployed back to Italy to teach at PIME's college and seminary in Sotto Il Monte where he remained until his first mission posting. Instead of Papua, New Guinea Father Tullio Favali was sent to Mindanao. On June 12th, 1984 Tullio arrived at PIME's Regional House in Zamboanga City. After a spell at a language school in Davao City Tullio was assigned to Kidapawan Prelature, where he in turn deployed to the municipality of Tulunan, in North Cotabato Province. At Tulunan Tullio became the assistant to its parish priest, another Italian PIME misionary, Father Peter Geremia.
Geremia was himself already quite notorius both within the Church and in Mindanao at large. Arriving in the Philippines just as Marcos declared Martial Law in the Autumn of 1972 he soon ran afoul of the authorities and found himself rounded up in a PC, or Philippine Constabulary camp. That incident typified Geremia's brand of "in your face - I don't care what you, yours, and all of you think" brand of advocacy. Though both Geremia and Father Tullio Favali were PIME missionary priests, and both were born and bred in Northern Italy, they never grew particularly close. Years later Father Geremia would publish his diary, "Dreams and Bloodstains: The Diary of a Missioner in the Philippines." In it he wrotes on April 12th, 1985, one day after Tullio was murdered,
"I saw Tullio on the road with his brains scattered around, his mouth eating dirt, his blood like a dark carpet...Tullio came into my life like a stranger. I did not know him before. We lived together but in separate worlds. I could never share with him my inner struggles and he was taken by his (own) struggle. We were running with all our strength, without looking much at the obstacles or each other."
The violence that served as the impetus behind Geremia's diary entry stemmed from three brothers from South Cotabato Province, the Maneros, and revolved around what was technically a unit of the CHDF, or Civilian Home Defense Force. Founded in 1976, it was meant as a way in which to consolidate what was then many dozens of disparate pro-Government paramilitaries, many of which had been fighting on Mindanao since 1969 when the early Islamic paramilitaries like the Itumans (Black Shirts) and Barakudas (Baraccudas) first began committing atrocities against non-Muslims in Central and Northwestern Mindanao. Some, like the Maneros' outfit, were operating as brigands, cattle rustleing, murder for hire, extortion, and all sorts of fun family type activities.
In the Maneros' case, the brothers had gotten their start as small time thugs in their hometown of Pomolok in what is today South Cotabato Province. Protected by their father, Norberto Sr., a barangay captain, the brothers built a stronghold in a compound at the foot of Mount Matatum, in Pomolok's Barangay Kinilis where they were well paid as they handled the bloody eviction of B'laan Tribesmen who stood in the way of Dole Phil., and its plans to turn the barangay into a giant pineapple plantation in 1971, having gained notiriety by the late-1960s.
One of the brothers, Norberto Manero Jr., took a bad break when the Mayor of Magsaysay, a municipality in Davao del Sur Province, had him arrested by PC. Captain Filipino "Fil" O.Amoguis who hunted Manero's group throughout the mountain range stretching from what is today Sarangani Province across to the outskirts of Davao City. Eventually cornered and sentenced to death, Manero was given a date of execution and it seemed that all hope had been lost. On the big day Manero was brought out to the PC shooting range for an execution by firing squad. As he stood next to the pole that he would be bound to before being shot, a guard began fiddling with his keys trying to find the handcuff key when the detachment commander received an unexpected radio transmission from District Headquarters in Davao City. The commander was ordered not only to halt the execution but to not return Manero to jail, he was pardoned. In the end Manero's life had been saved because his guard misplaced a key.
Later Manero would learn that he owed his life to attorney Cornelio Falgui, a once and future mayor in the municipality of Kiamba, in what is today Sarangani Province. Falgui, like other ambitious Ilonggo politicians had relied on Manero's group to settle political vendettas as well as to help consolidate land purchases in the upland environs of Kiamba and other nearby towns. Falgui realised that should he succeed in saving Manero's life the charasmatic and extremely violent Manero would be indebted to him ever after. Indeed, all these years later, long after Mayor Falgui's death, Manero continues to hold a close relationship with Falgui's son, General Santos City-based attorney Tomas C.Falgui.
The elder Falgui, Cornelio, after learning of the hastily set execution, began calling in chips and finally succeeded in gaining the assistance of the local infantry battalion commander. After discussing the matter with his superior at brigade headquarters the two officers quickly contacted Major General Fortunato "Tony" U.Abat, then serving as the commander of the now defunct CEMCOM, or Mindanao Central Command. The two lower ranked officers informed Abat that Manero was a Military Assett who had become ensnared in a political vendetta while undertaking a covert operation at the behest of the battalion and brigade commanders. In the end Fortunato agreed to intervene and after a subordinate failed in getting the execution scubbed grabbed the phone himself and angrily, neigh enraged, phoned the Philippine Constabulary and saved Manero's life...and in doing so allowed Manero and his merry band of degenerate miscreants to once again run through the mountains on Mindanao's southern coast. This time however, Manero did so as an official paramilitary leader holding mission orders personally signed by then Minister of National Defense, Juan Ponce Enrile. Manero had come within a milimeter of losing his life but had emerged not only a free man, but with a cloak of invincibility courtesy of the Marcos Dictatorship.
Having assumed the nom de guerre, "Kumander Bucay," Manero's merry men (and women, his first wife, Leonarda Lacson Manero, having assumed her own title, "Kumander Inday") the group was intact . In 1976 Manero's paramilitary was grandfathered into the Integrated Civilian Home Defense Force, or ICHDF (which would later be shortened simply to CHDF). The ICHDF was a way in which to better control disparate right wing paramilitaries as well as a way in which to implement an effective force multiplier vis a vis the counterinsurgency programme, needing fresh meat to do battle with the MNLF and ever increasingly, with the NPA as well. Just a year later, in 1977, Manero's ICHDF was linked to a troubling incident in his hometown, Pomolok. Two brothers, Ali and Mamabawatan Mamalumpong, were abducted and horribly tortured before being killed.
Owing to Manero's powerful patrons in both the PC as well as the Central and Southern Mindanowan business and political arenas no body was charged in the case and Manero's reputation was now assured. Like Ghengis Khan, all most villages had to hear was that Manero's company would be undertaking an operation, or simply implementing a security protocol on behalf of the PC and that village would empty within hours, a stampede of refugees abandoning hearth and home.
By the beginning of the 1980s the biggest internal security threat on Mindanao, and indeed nationwide, had become the Maoist NPA. At nearly five times their current armed strength it is difficult to convey just how powerful this group was. This of course was well before even the first internal purge. The NPA was viewed as the champion of the downtrodden and oppressed and Marcos was almost universally reviled. On Mindanao the strongest sector for the NPA was the now defunct CMR, or Central Mindanao Region. With CMR's power steadily growing the PC shifted assets and began consolidation of its own forces, including the CHDF. Unlike the CAA programme (Civilian Active Auxiliary, of which CAFGU is the best known) the CHDF wasn't locked into a highly specific geographical area. Its companies could be deployed and operate anywhere it was needed.
By the Spring of 1985, Manero's company was deployed to the municipality of Tulunan in North Cotabato Province to ferret out a large NPA presence that had just begun exerting itself. The NPA first arrived on Mindanao just as Martial Law was being implemented in September of 1972. Centered in Davao City it would take five years before anyone in Government even realised that the Maoists had migrated south. Despite repeated attempts it would be 1980 before the NPA fully established itself outside of the immediate Davao Region. One of the first outward thrusts ended up on the nexus of Davao de Sur, North Contabato and Bukidnon Provinces in 1977. However, it wasn't until 1979 that parts of Central Mindanao first fell under control of the NPA.
Tulunan, a town in North Cotabato's Second Congressional District, aka the Ilonggo Belt, had remanied free from much of the strife seen in areas that had developed a strong NPA presence. That was, until Father Peter Geremia brought his personal brand of Catholicism to the towns outlying barangays. His incessant organising of peasants (when Lumads weren't available) into "progressive" organisations naturally earned him a high ranking slot on the Military's Order of Battle. Orders of Battle, or OBs, are a listing of individuals and organisations that prioritises their neutralisation. In other words, it serves as a list of targets ALTHOUGH the neutralisation need not be of a violent nature. Unfortunately for Father Tullio Favali he ended up living with and working side by side with Father Germia, and this would end up costing him his life.
The day before Father Geremia's aforementioned diary entry, on April 11th, 1985, Norberto and his two brothers, Elpidio and Edilberto, or "Edil," sat just outside a non-descript "carinderia" (eatery) at an unnamed crossroads at mile marker Kilometer 125 in Tulunan's Barangay La Esperanza. The brothers were meeting there with Arsenio Villamor Jr., the right hand man of Tulunan's Mayor, Josue Faustino, and himself the scion of a local politician. Villamor had been appointed the unofficial co-ordinator of local counterinsurgency efforts and it had been he who had invited the Manero CHDF to Tulunan to try and rid the outlying barangays of the NPA and its most ardent supporters. With Villamor were two bodyguards supplied by the 3rd Special Forces Battalion (Airborne), and with the three Manero brothers were Roger Bedano, Efren Plenayo, Rodrigo "Rudy" Espija, and the two Lineses brothers, Rudy and Severino, all members of the Manero-led CHDF detachment.
Brainstorming, a relative term in this case, the group decided that a prudent first course of action would be to affix placards at the crossroads upon which would be listed the names of known sympathisers in the immediate area. Meant to intimidate, one of the first names listed was Father Peter Geremia. They then got down to business since known killers like the Maneros and their outfit weren't brought into towns to hang posters. Although ostensibly Government employees as members of the CHDF, those that requested the group's help knew that it would come at a steep price...although it is fair to say that Arsenio Villamor Jr. never guessed how steep that price could be.
The group began discussing who should die and amongst those names, who should take the highest priority. Together they formulated a list:
1) Father Peter (Fr.Peter Geremia)
2) Domingo Gomez, a lay worker close to Fr.Peter
3) Fred Gapete, a local peasant organiser
4) Rufino "Bantil" Robles, a lay worker close to Fr.Peter
5) Rene Tabagac
6) a man known only by his surname, Villaning
Edilberto Manero suggested that if Father Peter proved difficult they might as well simply target the other PIME priest, Father Tullio Favali. Nobody responded but those words would ring heavy as those present recalled that meeting. At that point Villamor took his leave, having other pressing duties to attend to and left the Manero CHDF at the cafe, knowing that the number one target, Father Peter, was up country making the rounds of his followers in outlying barangays. When he returned to his rectory, 5 kilometers past that crossroads on the way into Tulunan proper, Villamor wanted to be far, faw away and preferably in a large crowd to serve as his alibi.
With time to kill the Maneros and their men drank away the morning at a cockpit on the opposite side of the road, betting on which rooster would kill the other. By 1PM Elpidio was bored and so he took two of their men and began nailing a placard with those six names to a telephone pole before ducking back into the cafe for some more beer. Now feeling no pain the group decided instead of simply waiting around for Father Peter they would simply go after another name on the list. As luck would have it, Rufino "Bantil" Robles lived within sight of the crossroads. Unfortunately, that happened to be the moment that Bantil chose to approach the men in front of the cafe and ask why his name was affixed to a placard since, in the drunken state of mind, the Maneros had neglected to affix any heading to the placard. Instead it merely consisted of six names, with no explanation. Edilberto asked the man if he had any problem having his name on the list. Confused, Bantil replied that he couldn't have a problem if he didn't know what the list signified and repeated his initial question, asking why it had been added to a list. Edilberto suddenly pulled a 38 caliber revolver and fired one round that just missed hiting Bantil square in the head but still managing to crease the right side of his head.
Dripping blood Bantil threw himself at Edilberto and began trying to wrestle the revolver away from him. Terrified, Bantil's wife then joined the fracas trying to separate the two men and screamed at her husband to run. Heeding his wife's advice Bantil ran for his life as Edilberto gave chase. Firing one last time as Bantil approached the door to the home of yet another of the targeted men, Domingo Gomez. Elpidio's second round just missed Bantil's leg, taking a bit of fabric as it went through his trousers. Bantil didn't want his luck to run out and so, after Gomez's wife opened the door he pushed his way inside the house and barricaded it to keep gis attacker from entering.
Bantil's wife had already begun the five kilometer walk to Father Peter's rectory and hadn't gone very far before a passing motorcyclist saved her from walking the entire way. With Father Peter still in the upland barangays only Father Tullio was there to receive her. As soon as he understood what she was saying he jogged to his motorcycle and told the woman to climb onto the back. Arriving at the Gomez home he saw that the attackers had surrounded it but knowing that he couldn't back down he slowly drove up to the house, parked his motorcycle and then entered to check on Bantil.
Edilberto meanwhile, had gone back to the cafe to enjoy a few more beers. As the cafe's owner, Reynaldo Deocades, nervously brought Edilberto his request Edilberto suddenly jumped up and pistol whipped the man in the face, laughingly calling him a "fuc*ing Communist." Deocades returned to the counter and set about slopping the two hogs he kept in a pen at the rear of his establishment. Edilberto decided that Deocades hadn't been sufficiently terrorised yet. Pocketing his 38 caliber revolver he picked up his M14, went to the pigsty and sprayed the ground around Deocade's feet with several rounds causing the latter to collapse in tears, apparently close to a nervous breakdown. Two men with Edilberto, brothers Rudy and Severino Lineses joined their drunken companion howling with laughter. Finished now that Deocades was crying, with head between his knees, they walked over to the Gomez home where Father Tullio has just joined Mrs.Gomez and Bantil. As they approached Norberto walked over to the priest's motorcycle and wheeled it out into the centre of the road. Loosening the gas cap Norberto purposefully emptied some of the fuel and then used it to set the motorcycle on fire.
Hearing the crowd scream Father Tullio nervously peered out a window and saw his motorcycle on fire. Exiting the house slowly, his arms raised upwards as if in surrender, he asked Norberto why he had set his motorcycle on fire, the last words Tullio Favali would ever say. As Tullio asked Norberto why he had set the motorcycle on fire Norberto stepped backwards, both thumbs pointing downward on outstretched hands, before finally saying, "Ano ang gusto month Padre? Gusto month Father bukon ko ang ulo mo?" (What do you want Father? Father you want me to crack your skull?). Edilberto stepped forward from the side, and then, without warning shot Father Tullio in the head from point blank range. The shot, from Edilberto's 38 caliber revolver, caused Tullio to spin 180 degrees and sink to his knees, as he did so hid arms reflexively crossed and as he fell onto his back his arms remained in that eerie position.
Thus concludes the first part of this three part entry.
PIME, or Pontificium Institum Missionum Exterarum (Latin for "The Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions") is an order based in Rome and dedicated to missionising amongst non-Catholics and for the most part they centre their efforts in far flung corners of the globe. The order resulted from the merging of two Italian seminarys:
1) The Lombard Seminary for Foreign Missions, in Milan, founded in 1850
2) The Pontifical Seminary of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul for Foreign Missions, in Rome, founded in 1871
The two seminarys were joined in 1926 and given the present name. Interestingly, the older of the two institutions, Lombard Seminary, deployed its first three missionary priests to two tiny islands in Oceania, Woodlark and Rook. Marist priests had preceded them there but had abandoned their mission due to the danger posed by the islands' then cannibalistic tribes. When Lombard Seminary deployed three priests there, two of them were served as lunch- literaly- for the islanders (one was beatified), and so the third swam for his life after which the mission was abandoned. One can see that from its earliest beginnings PIME missionary priests dove headfirst into dangerous locales and often didn't live to tell about it.
With the coming of Vatican II- which began in 1962 and ended in 1965- the Catholic Church was turned inside out. All of a sudden, Latin, the Church's liturgical tongue since its founding nearly two millenia before fell by the wayside. Whereas before, if lucky, parishoners in very large cities were serenaded by ethereal Gregorian Chants that nobody could understand, now priests were allowed to sing folktunes or even modern pop music, and even the most isolated village now haf a choir singing in its everyday language. The hellfire and brimstone pathos gave way to eucemenical luncheons and touchy feely- interfaith encounters and retreats. With this new, more liberal outlook, the Catholic Church began attracting a different class of priests, clergymen with a social consciousness. PIME had always taken a much more gentler path with potential converts. Where as Catholic priests entering heretofore uncontacted villages would first build a church, PIME felt that schools should come first along with concrete improvements in villager's everyday lives. Otherwise, one might attract converts but the conversions are almost always insincere and with little impetus would backslide and throw off their newly accepted faith.
As Vatican II began in Rome in 1962, the Church was undergoing a parallel catharsis in Latin America.
Theologians like the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez, and his contemporaries Juan Luis Segundo, Lucio Gerd, and many others had assimilated the thought provoking ideas that came out of Central Europe in the post-World War II Era. Men like Jacques Maritain, Henri de Lubac, and Yves Congar saw a Church that catered to the well to do but generally ignored the needy except when asking them to tithe, or else castigating them for "slovenly" habits. By 1964, at a conference in Brasil's Pertropolis, in Rio de Janeiro, Gustavo Gutierrez described his take on theology boldly as, "A critical reflection on praxis." Essentialy he was paraphrasing Karl Marx, albeit it very loosely. Marx had said, "Philosophers have explained the world; our task is to change it." Gutierrez was saying that theology wasn't a sterile ideology, it wasn't a theoretical construct. Rather, it was alive and vibrant. It was meant to be applied in everday life to correct institutional and systematic injustices that made the rich richer and kept the poor just as poor. Theologians should be active partners with the poor and disenfranchised in a struggle to transform the world for the betterment of all.
By 1968, three years after Vatican II ended, another, even bigger conference was held in Medellin, Colombia and months later, in 1969 the new theological variant had come into its own with a conference held in Cartigny, in Switzerland, that was entitled, "Toward a Theology of Liberation." As 1970 began a parallel movement within various Protestant Churches was developing along a very similar line with a convention held in Buenos Aries, Argentina. Christianity as a whole seemed to be moving in a general direction.
Although PIME pre-dated Vatican II by more than a century, the momentous changes within Christendom boosted the tiny order's cachet. The organisation began attracting many experienced clerics as well as the usual cannon fodder, freshly minted priests, just out of the PIME seminary. One of the more "experienced" priests was Father Tullio.
A native of Sacchetta di Sustinente, in Mantova, Italy in 1946, in an Italy wracked by the violence of the American Occupation at the close of World War II. Unable to properly support their son, Tullio's parents had him enter a seminary at age 9, in 1956. At age 15, in 1962, Tullio began studying fulltime for the priesthood and by 1965 had become a priest. Gaining his Ordination just as Vatican II finished, Father Tullio entered the priesthood and began his duties as an assistant parish priest in a non-descript farming village in his native Italy.
By the end of the 1960s Italy was suffering from political upheaval that effected every corner of society. Kidnapping was rampant and various armed groups capitalised on the anarchy. Groups like Brigate Rossi (Red Brigade), Lotta Continua (Contuious Struggle), Poetre Operaio Pisano, Poetre Operlo, and so on, made life in Northern Italy incredibly difficult but more than the threat to life and limb. Feeling unable to fufill the mandate of his new vocation he left the priesthood and spent the next several years on a journey of self discovery.
In 1978 he felt mature enough to consider re-committing his life to the priesthood, and so he spent a trial period in a PIME Formation House in the Italian town of Busto Arsizio. After long contemplation Tullio realised that he hadn't spent his formative years in the seminary and while he did pass his courses and gain ordination, he felt that the experience had been hollow. He resolved to re-enter the seminary, a PIME seminary, and re-learn all that he needed to in order to effectively minister to the poorest of the poor in isolated villages as opposed to overweight matrons in suburban Milan. On June 6th, 1981 Father Tullio Favali gained his second ordaination and became a PIME missioary priest.
Assigned to the town of Monza as an assistant parish priest in Christ the King parish. Though just getting his feet wet as a PIME cleric Tullio felt impatient and wanted to go abroad as soon as possible. The 35 year old priest badly wanted to be sent to Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately for Father Tullio however, Papua was then, as now, in conflict as the Papuans struggled for independence against Indonesia which had invaded it in 1969 and, eventually re-named it "Irin Jaya." More to the point, Indonesia, as a Muslim Nation, doesn't cotton to Christian missionaries, even when the target demographic is Animist. Instead his superiors deployed him to Chicago, in the United States. There Father Tullio attended a language school in order to learn English, seeing as how English is now seen as the lingua franca the world over.
Still unable to proceed to Papua Father Tullio was deployed back to Italy to teach at PIME's college and seminary in Sotto Il Monte where he remained until his first mission posting. Instead of Papua, New Guinea Father Tullio Favali was sent to Mindanao. On June 12th, 1984 Tullio arrived at PIME's Regional House in Zamboanga City. After a spell at a language school in Davao City Tullio was assigned to Kidapawan Prelature, where he in turn deployed to the municipality of Tulunan, in North Cotabato Province. At Tulunan Tullio became the assistant to its parish priest, another Italian PIME misionary, Father Peter Geremia.
Geremia was himself already quite notorius both within the Church and in Mindanao at large. Arriving in the Philippines just as Marcos declared Martial Law in the Autumn of 1972 he soon ran afoul of the authorities and found himself rounded up in a PC, or Philippine Constabulary camp. That incident typified Geremia's brand of "in your face - I don't care what you, yours, and all of you think" brand of advocacy. Though both Geremia and Father Tullio Favali were PIME missionary priests, and both were born and bred in Northern Italy, they never grew particularly close. Years later Father Geremia would publish his diary, "Dreams and Bloodstains: The Diary of a Missioner in the Philippines." In it he wrotes on April 12th, 1985, one day after Tullio was murdered,
"I saw Tullio on the road with his brains scattered around, his mouth eating dirt, his blood like a dark carpet...Tullio came into my life like a stranger. I did not know him before. We lived together but in separate worlds. I could never share with him my inner struggles and he was taken by his (own) struggle. We were running with all our strength, without looking much at the obstacles or each other."
The violence that served as the impetus behind Geremia's diary entry stemmed from three brothers from South Cotabato Province, the Maneros, and revolved around what was technically a unit of the CHDF, or Civilian Home Defense Force. Founded in 1976, it was meant as a way in which to consolidate what was then many dozens of disparate pro-Government paramilitaries, many of which had been fighting on Mindanao since 1969 when the early Islamic paramilitaries like the Itumans (Black Shirts) and Barakudas (Baraccudas) first began committing atrocities against non-Muslims in Central and Northwestern Mindanao. Some, like the Maneros' outfit, were operating as brigands, cattle rustleing, murder for hire, extortion, and all sorts of fun family type activities.
In the Maneros' case, the brothers had gotten their start as small time thugs in their hometown of Pomolok in what is today South Cotabato Province. Protected by their father, Norberto Sr., a barangay captain, the brothers built a stronghold in a compound at the foot of Mount Matatum, in Pomolok's Barangay Kinilis where they were well paid as they handled the bloody eviction of B'laan Tribesmen who stood in the way of Dole Phil., and its plans to turn the barangay into a giant pineapple plantation in 1971, having gained notiriety by the late-1960s.
One of the brothers, Norberto Manero Jr., took a bad break when the Mayor of Magsaysay, a municipality in Davao del Sur Province, had him arrested by PC. Captain Filipino "Fil" O.Amoguis who hunted Manero's group throughout the mountain range stretching from what is today Sarangani Province across to the outskirts of Davao City. Eventually cornered and sentenced to death, Manero was given a date of execution and it seemed that all hope had been lost. On the big day Manero was brought out to the PC shooting range for an execution by firing squad. As he stood next to the pole that he would be bound to before being shot, a guard began fiddling with his keys trying to find the handcuff key when the detachment commander received an unexpected radio transmission from District Headquarters in Davao City. The commander was ordered not only to halt the execution but to not return Manero to jail, he was pardoned. In the end Manero's life had been saved because his guard misplaced a key.
Later Manero would learn that he owed his life to attorney Cornelio Falgui, a once and future mayor in the municipality of Kiamba, in what is today Sarangani Province. Falgui, like other ambitious Ilonggo politicians had relied on Manero's group to settle political vendettas as well as to help consolidate land purchases in the upland environs of Kiamba and other nearby towns. Falgui realised that should he succeed in saving Manero's life the charasmatic and extremely violent Manero would be indebted to him ever after. Indeed, all these years later, long after Mayor Falgui's death, Manero continues to hold a close relationship with Falgui's son, General Santos City-based attorney Tomas C.Falgui.
The elder Falgui, Cornelio, after learning of the hastily set execution, began calling in chips and finally succeeded in gaining the assistance of the local infantry battalion commander. After discussing the matter with his superior at brigade headquarters the two officers quickly contacted Major General Fortunato "Tony" U.Abat, then serving as the commander of the now defunct CEMCOM, or Mindanao Central Command. The two lower ranked officers informed Abat that Manero was a Military Assett who had become ensnared in a political vendetta while undertaking a covert operation at the behest of the battalion and brigade commanders. In the end Fortunato agreed to intervene and after a subordinate failed in getting the execution scubbed grabbed the phone himself and angrily, neigh enraged, phoned the Philippine Constabulary and saved Manero's life...and in doing so allowed Manero and his merry band of degenerate miscreants to once again run through the mountains on Mindanao's southern coast. This time however, Manero did so as an official paramilitary leader holding mission orders personally signed by then Minister of National Defense, Juan Ponce Enrile. Manero had come within a milimeter of losing his life but had emerged not only a free man, but with a cloak of invincibility courtesy of the Marcos Dictatorship.
Having assumed the nom de guerre, "Kumander Bucay," Manero's merry men (and women, his first wife, Leonarda Lacson Manero, having assumed her own title, "Kumander Inday") the group was intact . In 1976 Manero's paramilitary was grandfathered into the Integrated Civilian Home Defense Force, or ICHDF (which would later be shortened simply to CHDF). The ICHDF was a way in which to better control disparate right wing paramilitaries as well as a way in which to implement an effective force multiplier vis a vis the counterinsurgency programme, needing fresh meat to do battle with the MNLF and ever increasingly, with the NPA as well. Just a year later, in 1977, Manero's ICHDF was linked to a troubling incident in his hometown, Pomolok. Two brothers, Ali and Mamabawatan Mamalumpong, were abducted and horribly tortured before being killed.
Owing to Manero's powerful patrons in both the PC as well as the Central and Southern Mindanowan business and political arenas no body was charged in the case and Manero's reputation was now assured. Like Ghengis Khan, all most villages had to hear was that Manero's company would be undertaking an operation, or simply implementing a security protocol on behalf of the PC and that village would empty within hours, a stampede of refugees abandoning hearth and home.
By the beginning of the 1980s the biggest internal security threat on Mindanao, and indeed nationwide, had become the Maoist NPA. At nearly five times their current armed strength it is difficult to convey just how powerful this group was. This of course was well before even the first internal purge. The NPA was viewed as the champion of the downtrodden and oppressed and Marcos was almost universally reviled. On Mindanao the strongest sector for the NPA was the now defunct CMR, or Central Mindanao Region. With CMR's power steadily growing the PC shifted assets and began consolidation of its own forces, including the CHDF. Unlike the CAA programme (Civilian Active Auxiliary, of which CAFGU is the best known) the CHDF wasn't locked into a highly specific geographical area. Its companies could be deployed and operate anywhere it was needed.
By the Spring of 1985, Manero's company was deployed to the municipality of Tulunan in North Cotabato Province to ferret out a large NPA presence that had just begun exerting itself. The NPA first arrived on Mindanao just as Martial Law was being implemented in September of 1972. Centered in Davao City it would take five years before anyone in Government even realised that the Maoists had migrated south. Despite repeated attempts it would be 1980 before the NPA fully established itself outside of the immediate Davao Region. One of the first outward thrusts ended up on the nexus of Davao de Sur, North Contabato and Bukidnon Provinces in 1977. However, it wasn't until 1979 that parts of Central Mindanao first fell under control of the NPA.
Tulunan, a town in North Cotabato's Second Congressional District, aka the Ilonggo Belt, had remanied free from much of the strife seen in areas that had developed a strong NPA presence. That was, until Father Peter Geremia brought his personal brand of Catholicism to the towns outlying barangays. His incessant organising of peasants (when Lumads weren't available) into "progressive" organisations naturally earned him a high ranking slot on the Military's Order of Battle. Orders of Battle, or OBs, are a listing of individuals and organisations that prioritises their neutralisation. In other words, it serves as a list of targets ALTHOUGH the neutralisation need not be of a violent nature. Unfortunately for Father Tullio Favali he ended up living with and working side by side with Father Germia, and this would end up costing him his life.
The day before Father Geremia's aforementioned diary entry, on April 11th, 1985, Norberto and his two brothers, Elpidio and Edilberto, or "Edil," sat just outside a non-descript "carinderia" (eatery) at an unnamed crossroads at mile marker Kilometer 125 in Tulunan's Barangay La Esperanza. The brothers were meeting there with Arsenio Villamor Jr., the right hand man of Tulunan's Mayor, Josue Faustino, and himself the scion of a local politician. Villamor had been appointed the unofficial co-ordinator of local counterinsurgency efforts and it had been he who had invited the Manero CHDF to Tulunan to try and rid the outlying barangays of the NPA and its most ardent supporters. With Villamor were two bodyguards supplied by the 3rd Special Forces Battalion (Airborne), and with the three Manero brothers were Roger Bedano, Efren Plenayo, Rodrigo "Rudy" Espija, and the two Lineses brothers, Rudy and Severino, all members of the Manero-led CHDF detachment.
Brainstorming, a relative term in this case, the group decided that a prudent first course of action would be to affix placards at the crossroads upon which would be listed the names of known sympathisers in the immediate area. Meant to intimidate, one of the first names listed was Father Peter Geremia. They then got down to business since known killers like the Maneros and their outfit weren't brought into towns to hang posters. Although ostensibly Government employees as members of the CHDF, those that requested the group's help knew that it would come at a steep price...although it is fair to say that Arsenio Villamor Jr. never guessed how steep that price could be.
The group began discussing who should die and amongst those names, who should take the highest priority. Together they formulated a list:
1) Father Peter (Fr.Peter Geremia)
2) Domingo Gomez, a lay worker close to Fr.Peter
3) Fred Gapete, a local peasant organiser
4) Rufino "Bantil" Robles, a lay worker close to Fr.Peter
5) Rene Tabagac
6) a man known only by his surname, Villaning
Edilberto Manero suggested that if Father Peter proved difficult they might as well simply target the other PIME priest, Father Tullio Favali. Nobody responded but those words would ring heavy as those present recalled that meeting. At that point Villamor took his leave, having other pressing duties to attend to and left the Manero CHDF at the cafe, knowing that the number one target, Father Peter, was up country making the rounds of his followers in outlying barangays. When he returned to his rectory, 5 kilometers past that crossroads on the way into Tulunan proper, Villamor wanted to be far, faw away and preferably in a large crowd to serve as his alibi.
With time to kill the Maneros and their men drank away the morning at a cockpit on the opposite side of the road, betting on which rooster would kill the other. By 1PM Elpidio was bored and so he took two of their men and began nailing a placard with those six names to a telephone pole before ducking back into the cafe for some more beer. Now feeling no pain the group decided instead of simply waiting around for Father Peter they would simply go after another name on the list. As luck would have it, Rufino "Bantil" Robles lived within sight of the crossroads. Unfortunately, that happened to be the moment that Bantil chose to approach the men in front of the cafe and ask why his name was affixed to a placard since, in the drunken state of mind, the Maneros had neglected to affix any heading to the placard. Instead it merely consisted of six names, with no explanation. Edilberto asked the man if he had any problem having his name on the list. Confused, Bantil replied that he couldn't have a problem if he didn't know what the list signified and repeated his initial question, asking why it had been added to a list. Edilberto suddenly pulled a 38 caliber revolver and fired one round that just missed hiting Bantil square in the head but still managing to crease the right side of his head.
Dripping blood Bantil threw himself at Edilberto and began trying to wrestle the revolver away from him. Terrified, Bantil's wife then joined the fracas trying to separate the two men and screamed at her husband to run. Heeding his wife's advice Bantil ran for his life as Edilberto gave chase. Firing one last time as Bantil approached the door to the home of yet another of the targeted men, Domingo Gomez. Elpidio's second round just missed Bantil's leg, taking a bit of fabric as it went through his trousers. Bantil didn't want his luck to run out and so, after Gomez's wife opened the door he pushed his way inside the house and barricaded it to keep gis attacker from entering.
Bantil's wife had already begun the five kilometer walk to Father Peter's rectory and hadn't gone very far before a passing motorcyclist saved her from walking the entire way. With Father Peter still in the upland barangays only Father Tullio was there to receive her. As soon as he understood what she was saying he jogged to his motorcycle and told the woman to climb onto the back. Arriving at the Gomez home he saw that the attackers had surrounded it but knowing that he couldn't back down he slowly drove up to the house, parked his motorcycle and then entered to check on Bantil.
Edilberto meanwhile, had gone back to the cafe to enjoy a few more beers. As the cafe's owner, Reynaldo Deocades, nervously brought Edilberto his request Edilberto suddenly jumped up and pistol whipped the man in the face, laughingly calling him a "fuc*ing Communist." Deocades returned to the counter and set about slopping the two hogs he kept in a pen at the rear of his establishment. Edilberto decided that Deocades hadn't been sufficiently terrorised yet. Pocketing his 38 caliber revolver he picked up his M14, went to the pigsty and sprayed the ground around Deocade's feet with several rounds causing the latter to collapse in tears, apparently close to a nervous breakdown. Two men with Edilberto, brothers Rudy and Severino Lineses joined their drunken companion howling with laughter. Finished now that Deocades was crying, with head between his knees, they walked over to the Gomez home where Father Tullio has just joined Mrs.Gomez and Bantil. As they approached Norberto walked over to the priest's motorcycle and wheeled it out into the centre of the road. Loosening the gas cap Norberto purposefully emptied some of the fuel and then used it to set the motorcycle on fire.
Hearing the crowd scream Father Tullio nervously peered out a window and saw his motorcycle on fire. Exiting the house slowly, his arms raised upwards as if in surrender, he asked Norberto why he had set his motorcycle on fire, the last words Tullio Favali would ever say. As Tullio asked Norberto why he had set the motorcycle on fire Norberto stepped backwards, both thumbs pointing downward on outstretched hands, before finally saying, "Ano ang gusto month Padre? Gusto month Father bukon ko ang ulo mo?" (What do you want Father? Father you want me to crack your skull?). Edilberto stepped forward from the side, and then, without warning shot Father Tullio in the head from point blank range. The shot, from Edilberto's 38 caliber revolver, caused Tullio to spin 180 degrees and sink to his knees, as he did so hid arms reflexively crossed and as he fell onto his back his arms remained in that eerie position.
Thus concludes the first part of this three part entry.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)