As I have often noted, the NPA's Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, long ago entered into a marriage of convnience with local warlord Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. The son of a fomer governor of what was then the unified province of Davao, the father of current Davao City Mayor Sarah "Inday" Duterte Carpio, a city he himself currently serves as its Vice Mayor. While working as a City Prosecutor there in the mid-1980s, Duterte naturally ran across a good many members of the NPA, and its political wing, the CPP, or Communist Party of the Philippines.
When Roddy decided to run for Mayor at the tail end of that same decade, he utilized one particular relationship with a high ranking member of the NPA in Davao City, Leonicio Pitao, better known by his nom de guerre, "Ka Parago.".The majority of the city's poorest areas had become battlegrounds between the NPA, its urban assaaination element, the SPARU (Special Armed Red Partisan Units), the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and its ultra-right wing extremist organizations, like Alsa Masa (Masses Arise). In exchange for relegating all NPA activities to three outlying districts of Davao City, Roddy would offer overt assistance in the form of cash, material, and intelligence. That quid pro quo remains in effect today.
Unlike her father, current Mayor Sarah "Inday" Durerte Carpio, has failed to maintain that same mutually beneficial relationship with the NPA. Things began well enough when Mayor Duterte Carpio entered office in June of 2010. Despite serving as a senior officer in the AFP Reserves, Carpio played hardball with the 69IB (Infantry Battalion), threatening to withdraw Davao City's share of financial support for the 69's COIN (Counterinsurgency) program in the city's outlying Paquibato District, one of the three aforementioned districts that her father, current Vice Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte had surrendered-for all intensive purposes-to the NPA. Mayor Duterte Carpio was livid over the 69's kinetic operations which, in her absolutely ignorant opinion, were utilized far too freely. In the waning days of OPlan Bantay Laya II, the irate Mayor decided to take a stand...so what if she single handedly reversed six years of AFP gains made in Paquibato, and by relation-since that district is the lynchpin in the NPA occupation of the three contigious districts-all of Davao City.
For Christmas of 2010 Mayor Duterte Carpio accompanied her father, the Vice Mayor, to Ka Parago's (then) main camp, on a forest covered ridge above Paquibato District. As is always the case, Duterte came without his security detachment. That festive occasion would mark the high point in Mayor Duterte's relationship with the NPA. From
there it was a steady decline although Carpio did get some face time with Parago two months later when she once again accompanied her father in another visit to Paquibato. In this latter meeting Duterte stayed outside a villager's hut where Parago, his Political Secretary Ka Benjamin, and Mayor Carpio hashed out each other's wish lists.
February 6th, 2011 an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) set by the NPA's 1st Pulang Bagani Company detonated in an ambush of a supply convoy serving posts manned by the 69IB (Infantry Battalion). Mayor Carpio had been scheduled
to appear at an outreach program later in the day. Pitao took the extraordinary step of personally issuing a statement on the ambush. He pointed out that the detonation occurred in Purok #5, in Paquibato's Barangay Mapula. In conyrast, Mayor Carpio's planned route was many kilometers from the blast site.
The issue that has best defined Mayor Carpio's interaction with the NPA has neen the outcry ovet the 69IB garrisoning a detachment on the grounds of the Paradise Embac Annex Primary School, in Paquibato District's Barangay Paradise Embac. Three City Councilors, Kaloy Bello, Leah Librado Yap and Jimmy Dureza have championed the demand made by residents of the NPA-controlled barangay, asking that the 69IB remove the post from school grounds. At the tail end of the Summer of 2011, the issue came to a head as the NPA mass front organization, Karapatan-which bills itself as a human rights NGO-galvanized a wider ranging response to a clear breech of International Law, courtesy of the AFP. Given her history of speaking out against over-militirization in that very district, Mayor Carpio might have been expected to at least try and assuage the very real concerns of school staff, students, and the families of those students. Instead, in her ever increasingly haughty tone, Mayor Carpio not only sided with the AFP, she arrogantly dismissed the concerns expressed by the aforementioned stakeholders.
At that point the NPA did its part in burning whatever proverbial bridges remained. Taking part in a co-ordinated stance that began in September of 2011, when the NDFP member orgabization SELDA (Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Labann sa Detensyon at Aresto/Task Force on Ex- Political Prisoners) attacked Carpio in the local media over an interview she had given in which she had had the audacity-and ignorance-to claim that all Political Prisoners are detained for actual crimes. Then, in an official statement released by the NPA's Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, accused Mayor Carpio of letting power go to her head (and that was the nicest thing it said). The statement, released in December of 2011, was an iota away from a death warrant, branding Carpio as having "bordered on being a counterrevolutionary or reactionary." In fact, it segued into a vicious tirade against Carpio with a laundry list of critical grievances. It was interesting in other ways because it noted how her father, Vice Mayor Duterte, had "in some ways recognized and cooperated in the revolutionary struggle," an "admission" that seemed even more pronounced once Duterte was officialy named an "Observer," and later a "Consultant" for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, or NDFP, the negotiating arm of the CPP/NPA/NDFP Maoist triumverate.
So it was that the customary Christmas slash New Years Truce of the NPA failed to usher in anything new. An uneasy air hanging over Paquibato District left many stakeholders nervously awaiting an armed response by Ka Parago. On January 12th, 2012, the tension broke when Parago's 1st Pulang Bagani Company launched two simeltaneous attacks on a pair of CAA posts. The CAA, or Civilian Active Auxiliaries, are a geographically static armed reserve of the AFP. The CAA element most visible to civilians are the CAFGU, or Civilian Auxiliary Forces Geographical Units. CAFGU posts are manned by residents of the barangay housing that specific post. CAFGU posts are then limited in only being able to operate within the boundries of their specific municipality.
In Paquibato District there is a different type of CAA. Usually listed as CAFGU posts. They are actuallt tribal and clan paramilitaries grandfathered in under the now defunct ISP (Internal Security Plan), "Oplan Alsa Lumad" (Operational Plan Hilltribes Arise). Like CAFGUs they are under the nominal command of am AFP cadre, usually a Corporal. Whereas CAFGU opetate in tandem with an AFP cadre battalion, the tribal paramilitaries often operate independently and as one might imagine, this does at times lead to unhealthy excesses.
On the day in question, at 3AM, two CAA posts in adjoining puroks (a barangay can be sub-divided into five puroks), within Paquibato District's Barangay Malabog, were attacked by two NPA elements. The posts, in Puroks Cababon and Golden Shower (no jokes please, it is an actual purok though for the life of me, I have no idea why it was bequathed that name), were both able to repel the Maoists but with two CAAs being wounded in the process.
CAA Loreto Lireta of Purok Golden Shower, was wounded in his left hand and left side of his chest by shrapnel from a rifle grenade. CAA Anthony Camansi of Purok Cabonbon, was wounded in his right hand.
Showing posts with label Leonicio"Ka Parago"Pitao. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leonicio"Ka Parago"Pitao. Show all posts
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Friday, November 18, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part X: Rebelyn Pitao's Ghost Won't be Silenced, Part 3
In the first two parts of this three part entry I discussed the legendary figurehead of the NPA in Southern Mindanao, Leonicio Pitao who is known by many as "Ka Parago." Pitao, who joined the NPA as a farmboy in the municipality of Bayugan in Agusan del Sur Province in 1978, had by the late 1980s become the military commander of what is now known as the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, the entity overseeing the entire Davao Region, also known as Region 11.
I have also been discussing member's of Pitao's immediate family, primarily his sister Evelyn and brother Danilo who were both murdered. The raison d'etra for this three part series however, was Pitao's third child with his wife, Evangeline Maasin Pitao, herself a former NPA guerilla. This child, a daughter, was saddled with the name "Rebelyn," pronounced "Rebellion," although the 20 year old shared nothing of father's propencity for violence nor his narrow Maoist ideology as filtered by the NPA, or New People's Army. Instead she was a homebody, only leaving her mother's side to tend to her recently acquired job at Davao City's Saint Peter's College of Technology where Rebelyn had usually been covering a second grade class.
Because of the relative security found in Davao City Rebelyn truly thought herself above the fray. This false sense of security led the young lady to being adhering to a regular routine. That regular routuine ended Rebelyn's life on March 4th, 2009. Upon her body being discovered half naked, stabbed, raped, and strangled the next afternoon, her father almost immediately pointed at the AFP as the true culprit. Two days after the death Leonicio Pitao named four men:
1) Sergeant (Sgt.) Helvin Bitang
2) Corporal (Cpl.) Orly Pedring Pedregosa
3) Sergeant Adan Masulao
4) Sergeant Ben Tipait
Pitao announced that these four mens' identities had been discovered during a quick, but painstaking investigation by the NPA. As I noted in Part 2, Pitao was lying through his teeth. Two of the men, Adan Musalao and Ben Tipait do not exist, at least under those names. The other two men, Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa, were both members of the ISAFP, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and attached to MIG-11, or Military Intelligence Group for Region 11. Pitao knew these names because all those names were used by his brother Danilo's AFP handlers.
Still, with public opinion being what is and the media hounding him, the then Commanding Officer of the still very young 10ID (Infantry Divison), Major General Reynaldo B.Mapagu placed Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa on Barracks Restriction. At the time nobody bothered to ask the General just why he had put those two men on Restriction but did not do the same for the other two names.
In any event, as I noted in the preceding entry, by April 1st, 2009, less than 4 weeks after Leonicio Pitao announced those four names, he was ready to announce that there were 13 men tied to his daughter's death, some of who merely served as Military Assets, just like Danilo Santiago, Pitao's brother.
As luck or happenstance would have it, the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Leila de Lima- the same Ms.de Lima who is currently whoring herself- I mean serving the Aquino Administration- as the Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was then in town to hold a two day hearing examining the so called "Davao Death Squad," an Extra Judicial Execution jugganaut doing the bidding of then-Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. Simply adding three days onto the end of the Davao Death Squad hearings, Commissioner de Lima summoned all 13 men named by Pitao.
On the sidelines of the Davao Death Squad hearing Major Genneral Mapagu tried to convince Ms.de Lima that due to the sensitive nature of all 13 men's security- related work, having them testify in the very public hearings very well might jeapordise their lives. The back and forth between the AFP and CHR continued until, on the afternoon of the first scheduled session, April 1st, the two sides agreed to a hastily created booth in the General Function Room of the Royal Mandaya Hotel, the venue in downtown Davao City that was histing both the hearings. Sitting behind a curtain rigged to cover a seven meter by three meter enclosure, soldiers would be able to offer their statements. However, by 1PM not a single of the thirteen had shown up. As Ms.de Lima threatened to not only cite the summoned men, but division brass as well, Major General Mapagu finally sent six of the men to the hotel. As for the rest, they were deployed outside of Davao City, which was then the location for 10ID Headquarters, or else were merely Military Assets over whom the AFP held no legal jurisdiction outside of their specific roles as covert agents. They could not be compelled by the AFP to appear at a hearing in which no specific charges had been filed.
Meanwhile, the two eyewitnesses to Rebelyn Pitao's abduction were located:
1) Danny Peliciano, a triksiad driver who had been driving Rebelyn home that night
2) Dina Talaboc, the female passenger who had also been riding with Rebelyn in Mr.Peliciano's triksiad
Both had gone into hiding immediately after the abduction but with a media onslaught and repeated appeals to the two eyewitnesses, both had surfaced. The CPO, or City Police's CIDG, or Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, showed each witness a photo array of the men named by Leonicio Pitao. Neither witness was able to identify a single one of the thirteen purported attackers.
The three day CHR Hearing on Rebelyn's Death the case went they way of virtually all such cases, no matter the notiriety. Although Leonicio Pitao would eventually list a total of twenty one men in the incident:
1) Sergeant Adan Masulao, the non-existent man first listed just after the killing was actually using an AFP provided identity, "Adan Sulao," but his real name was Sergeant Romeo Marcos
2) Sergeant Ben Tipait, another one of the first "non-existent" men was actually named Sergeant Edmar Tipait whose alias while handling Assets was "Ben"
3) Corporal Orly Pedring Pedregosa
4) Sergeant Helvin Bitang
5) Sergeant Melvin Punla
6) Sergeant Caballero, first name not known by Pitao
7) Major Cabanalan, first name not known by Pitao
8) Colonel Caguiwa, first name not known by Pitao
9) Sergeant Senit, first name not known by Pitao
10) Corporal Wennie Carampatan
The rest being Assets, some of whom are listed by their Asset Code Names, which is all Pitao knew:
11) Ruben Bitang, uncle of Sergeant Helvin Bitang. Ruben was the driver of the white Toyota Revo cargo van that was used in the abduction, according to Pitao
12) Romeo Carreon
13) Hagto
14) Embac
15) Ariel, also known as "Benjack"
16) Reynaldo "Joemar" Desales
17) Macky Estremos
18) Bobong Gambuta
19) Marcelino Cuyot Payot
The final two were listed by Pitao as "John Does." Not one was ever prosecuted. However, the NPA would begin checking names off of that long list, one by one, as the SMRC's SPARU Team began killing each of those attackers.
The first of the 21 to be killed was Macky Estremos, before the CHR hearing even took place, in the municipality of Carmen, in Davao del Norte Province.
Then, on April 14th, 2009, Marcelino Cuyot Payot, killed in Panabo City.
On April 27th, 2009, Bobong Gambuta was killed in Panabo City as well.
4) On May 3rd, 2009, Ruben Bitang, the man whom Pitao accused of driving the van used by the abductors.
5) On October 25th, 2009, the first actual AFP member on the list was killed. when Corpral Pedregosa was killed in Davao City's Paquibato District.
On December 14eh, 2009, a SPARU Team killed an innocent man, Fernando Timbal. Mr.Timbal, a bank courier for the quasi-Governmental Land Bank while he was driving the branch manger's pickup truck, in Panabo City. He was hit by 12 rounds from a 45 caliber pistol.
The sixth killing is the one which inspired this Fourth Quarter entry; On Thursday, November 10th, 2011, at 6AM, Corporal Winnie Carampatan was driving his motorcycle in Davao City's Pquibato District, driving his two young children and his nephew to school. As he entered Barangay Malabog two men walked into the middle of the road, both drawing down and opening fire. Carampatan was killed, causing the motorcycle to skid off the road but all three of the children survived, albeit with bumps, scrapes, and of course traumatising them for life. After Rebelyn was killed the AFP dissolved the detachment from MIG-11 biouvaced in Panabo City, the one fingered as having killed Rebelyn. Carampatan had ended up with the 73IB based in Compostela Vallet's municipality of Mawab..
Disgustingly, the 10ID never mentioned Rebelyn Pitao OR her killing when eulogising Carampatan in media releases, "Our soldier was a non-combatant during the incident. Worst, he was killed before the members of his own family..." Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.
I have also been discussing member's of Pitao's immediate family, primarily his sister Evelyn and brother Danilo who were both murdered. The raison d'etra for this three part series however, was Pitao's third child with his wife, Evangeline Maasin Pitao, herself a former NPA guerilla. This child, a daughter, was saddled with the name "Rebelyn," pronounced "Rebellion," although the 20 year old shared nothing of father's propencity for violence nor his narrow Maoist ideology as filtered by the NPA, or New People's Army. Instead she was a homebody, only leaving her mother's side to tend to her recently acquired job at Davao City's Saint Peter's College of Technology where Rebelyn had usually been covering a second grade class.
Because of the relative security found in Davao City Rebelyn truly thought herself above the fray. This false sense of security led the young lady to being adhering to a regular routine. That regular routuine ended Rebelyn's life on March 4th, 2009. Upon her body being discovered half naked, stabbed, raped, and strangled the next afternoon, her father almost immediately pointed at the AFP as the true culprit. Two days after the death Leonicio Pitao named four men:
1) Sergeant (Sgt.) Helvin Bitang
2) Corporal (Cpl.) Orly Pedring Pedregosa
3) Sergeant Adan Masulao
4) Sergeant Ben Tipait
Pitao announced that these four mens' identities had been discovered during a quick, but painstaking investigation by the NPA. As I noted in Part 2, Pitao was lying through his teeth. Two of the men, Adan Musalao and Ben Tipait do not exist, at least under those names. The other two men, Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa, were both members of the ISAFP, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and attached to MIG-11, or Military Intelligence Group for Region 11. Pitao knew these names because all those names were used by his brother Danilo's AFP handlers.
Still, with public opinion being what is and the media hounding him, the then Commanding Officer of the still very young 10ID (Infantry Divison), Major General Reynaldo B.Mapagu placed Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa on Barracks Restriction. At the time nobody bothered to ask the General just why he had put those two men on Restriction but did not do the same for the other two names.
In any event, as I noted in the preceding entry, by April 1st, 2009, less than 4 weeks after Leonicio Pitao announced those four names, he was ready to announce that there were 13 men tied to his daughter's death, some of who merely served as Military Assets, just like Danilo Santiago, Pitao's brother.
As luck or happenstance would have it, the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Leila de Lima- the same Ms.de Lima who is currently whoring herself- I mean serving the Aquino Administration- as the Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was then in town to hold a two day hearing examining the so called "Davao Death Squad," an Extra Judicial Execution jugganaut doing the bidding of then-Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. Simply adding three days onto the end of the Davao Death Squad hearings, Commissioner de Lima summoned all 13 men named by Pitao.
On the sidelines of the Davao Death Squad hearing Major Genneral Mapagu tried to convince Ms.de Lima that due to the sensitive nature of all 13 men's security- related work, having them testify in the very public hearings very well might jeapordise their lives. The back and forth between the AFP and CHR continued until, on the afternoon of the first scheduled session, April 1st, the two sides agreed to a hastily created booth in the General Function Room of the Royal Mandaya Hotel, the venue in downtown Davao City that was histing both the hearings. Sitting behind a curtain rigged to cover a seven meter by three meter enclosure, soldiers would be able to offer their statements. However, by 1PM not a single of the thirteen had shown up. As Ms.de Lima threatened to not only cite the summoned men, but division brass as well, Major General Mapagu finally sent six of the men to the hotel. As for the rest, they were deployed outside of Davao City, which was then the location for 10ID Headquarters, or else were merely Military Assets over whom the AFP held no legal jurisdiction outside of their specific roles as covert agents. They could not be compelled by the AFP to appear at a hearing in which no specific charges had been filed.
Meanwhile, the two eyewitnesses to Rebelyn Pitao's abduction were located:
1) Danny Peliciano, a triksiad driver who had been driving Rebelyn home that night
2) Dina Talaboc, the female passenger who had also been riding with Rebelyn in Mr.Peliciano's triksiad
Both had gone into hiding immediately after the abduction but with a media onslaught and repeated appeals to the two eyewitnesses, both had surfaced. The CPO, or City Police's CIDG, or Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, showed each witness a photo array of the men named by Leonicio Pitao. Neither witness was able to identify a single one of the thirteen purported attackers.
The three day CHR Hearing on Rebelyn's Death the case went they way of virtually all such cases, no matter the notiriety. Although Leonicio Pitao would eventually list a total of twenty one men in the incident:
1) Sergeant Adan Masulao, the non-existent man first listed just after the killing was actually using an AFP provided identity, "Adan Sulao," but his real name was Sergeant Romeo Marcos
2) Sergeant Ben Tipait, another one of the first "non-existent" men was actually named Sergeant Edmar Tipait whose alias while handling Assets was "Ben"
3) Corporal Orly Pedring Pedregosa
4) Sergeant Helvin Bitang
5) Sergeant Melvin Punla
6) Sergeant Caballero, first name not known by Pitao
7) Major Cabanalan, first name not known by Pitao
8) Colonel Caguiwa, first name not known by Pitao
9) Sergeant Senit, first name not known by Pitao
10) Corporal Wennie Carampatan
The rest being Assets, some of whom are listed by their Asset Code Names, which is all Pitao knew:
11) Ruben Bitang, uncle of Sergeant Helvin Bitang. Ruben was the driver of the white Toyota Revo cargo van that was used in the abduction, according to Pitao
12) Romeo Carreon
13) Hagto
14) Embac
15) Ariel, also known as "Benjack"
16) Reynaldo "Joemar" Desales
17) Macky Estremos
18) Bobong Gambuta
19) Marcelino Cuyot Payot
The final two were listed by Pitao as "John Does." Not one was ever prosecuted. However, the NPA would begin checking names off of that long list, one by one, as the SMRC's SPARU Team began killing each of those attackers.
The first of the 21 to be killed was Macky Estremos, before the CHR hearing even took place, in the municipality of Carmen, in Davao del Norte Province.
Then, on April 14th, 2009, Marcelino Cuyot Payot, killed in Panabo City.
On April 27th, 2009, Bobong Gambuta was killed in Panabo City as well.
4) On May 3rd, 2009, Ruben Bitang, the man whom Pitao accused of driving the van used by the abductors.
5) On October 25th, 2009, the first actual AFP member on the list was killed. when Corpral Pedregosa was killed in Davao City's Paquibato District.
On December 14eh, 2009, a SPARU Team killed an innocent man, Fernando Timbal. Mr.Timbal, a bank courier for the quasi-Governmental Land Bank while he was driving the branch manger's pickup truck, in Panabo City. He was hit by 12 rounds from a 45 caliber pistol.
The sixth killing is the one which inspired this Fourth Quarter entry; On Thursday, November 10th, 2011, at 6AM, Corporal Winnie Carampatan was driving his motorcycle in Davao City's Pquibato District, driving his two young children and his nephew to school. As he entered Barangay Malabog two men walked into the middle of the road, both drawing down and opening fire. Carampatan was killed, causing the motorcycle to skid off the road but all three of the children survived, albeit with bumps, scrapes, and of course traumatising them for life. After Rebelyn was killed the AFP dissolved the detachment from MIG-11 biouvaced in Panabo City, the one fingered as having killed Rebelyn. Carampatan had ended up with the 73IB based in Compostela Vallet's municipality of Mawab..
Disgustingly, the 10ID never mentioned Rebelyn Pitao OR her killing when eulogising Carampatan in media releases, "Our soldier was a non-combatant during the incident. Worst, he was killed before the members of his own family..." Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part XII: The Ghost of Rebelyn Pitao wont be Silenced, Part 1
The sad death of Reblyn Maasin Pitao of Davao City transpired nearly three years ago and yet its consequences are still playing out today. Ms.Pitao, a newly-graduated substitute teacher at Davao City's Saint Peter's College was the third child of Leonicio Pitao and Evangeline Maasin Pitao. Mr.Pitao is much better known by his nom de guerre, "Ka Parago," the name he utilises as the top NPA Commander in the Davao Region.
The Secretary, or Leader, of the SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee's Merardo Arce Operational Command, Pitao also personally commands the Operational Command's company sized military element, the 1st Pulang Bagani Command, or 1PBC. From a base on the slopes of the Philippines' tallest mountain, Mount Apo, Pitao oversees all large scale tactical operations in the Davao Region, also known as Region 11, which comprises the following four provinces:
1) Davao del Sur
2) Davao del Norte
3) Davao Oriental
4) Compostela Valley, also known as "ComVal"
This region also holds the nation's second most populous city, Davao City. Because of a marriage of convenience between Pitao and that city's warlord, now-Vice Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte Pitao's personal fiefdom also includes a full 40% of that chartered city, albeit none of its urganised and therefore financially lucrative environs. Although the NEMRC, or Northeastern Mindanao Regional Committee has more manpower, and generates much more revenue for the organisation, Pitao's SMRC is viewed as the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) primary objective in its struggle to neutralise the NPA Insurgency. This is because the region is much, much more populous than the NEMRC's Region 13, also known as Caraga. While Caraga has much more in the way of natural resources, Davao Region is the Mindanao's industrial base. Controlling Davao Region offers the NPA incredible power but more so, leaves it posing a real threat to overall control of Mindanao.
Therefore, it is rather easy to understand the AFP's fixation on Leonicio Pitao. After finally apprehending him in the Autumn of 2009 he was released after little less than a year as a Good Will Gesture of the Arroyo Administration as it sought to lure the NPA back to the bargaining table in the two decades old GPH-NDFP Peace Process ("GPH" being the Government of the Philippines and "NDFP" being the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the political umbrella representing the NPA and its political wing, the CPP, or Communist Party of the Philippines in the Peace Process). To describe the AFP as "frustrated" vis a vis the Davao Region NPA resillience and its iconic figurehead Leonicio Pitao's ability to outsmart and outlast dozens of AFP Chiefs of Staff would be an extreme understatement. Indeed, the AFP created a new division, the 10ID (Infantry Division), and a new Regional Command, EASMINCOM (Eastern Mindanao Command), to more effectively deal with Pitao and his counterpart in the NEMRC, Jorge "Ka Oris" Madlos. Yet nothing has worked.
Not suprisingly more than a few AFP officers vexed with Pitao have undertaken unofficial avenues as they searched for an effective remedy. In 2008, a man on the payroll of Davao del Norte Province, blessed with an almost impossible to get no show job, was gunned down by people he knew on the front steps of Our Lady of Fatima, a Catholic Church in Tagum City's Barangay Mankilam, Purok Villa Cacacho in the aforementioned province of Davao del Norte.
The man, Danilo Santiago, had been a "seaman," Filipino speak for the national equivalent of a Merchant Marine. When he first went to see more than decades before, in 1985, he had changed his surname to Santiago, apprehensive that his birth name would keep him from gaining the necessary clearances needed to work in that industry. After all, his real surname, "Pitao" was known to the kind of people that could make those sorts of decisions. Although the brother of Leonicio Pitao he hadn't seen the NPA leader in nearly a decade. When he finally gave up travelling the world aboard ocean going freighters in 1995, to care for the three children abandoned by his estranged wife, he took a job as short order cook in Panabo City's Maria Clara Resturant. It was this job that would prove pivotal in Danilo Santiago's life.
Apparently recognised at his resturant job in 2007 he found himself dumbfounded when he learned that the AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines, was sizing him up quietly. His primary concern was that he was being primed for "Salvaging," the Filipino term for Extra-Judicial Execution. In the twelve years since he had stopped working abroad he had met a new woman, Mary Jean Espira, and began a new family. Life was going well for Danilo, until he was fingered. When the whispers of neighbours graduated into SMS (texts) and phone calls on his cellphone he realised that he had to act to save himself and perhaps his family. Travelling to the adjacent municipality of Davao City on May 23rd, 2007, he presented himself at the AFP's Camp Panacan. Within an hour he heard his name called and was ushered down a maze of hallways before finally arriving at a door without the requisite nameplate, the Headquarters of MIG-11, or, the 11th Military Intelligence Group. Interviewed by Captain Ramos (now with the 73IB), he was pointedly asked if he wanted to live to see his young children grow to adulthood. Danilo Santiago left Camp Panacan as a Military Asset, trading on his familial relationship with Leonicio Pitao. In return for assenting, he was issued a military stock 45 caliber pistol, ordered to report on the first Monday of every month, and sit back and wait to be activated by a handler, or controller.
Although Danilo was initially unaware, another of his siblings, his sister Evelyn, had also become a Military Asset when cornered as an NPA guerilla in Front 3, the Alejandro Lanaja Command, also in the SMRC. Like Danilo, she had been given an assumed identity, re-named Iris Belen Berano, and had used her earnings from the AFP to become a broker of hardwood timber. Also like Danilo, her decision would have a far reaching impact. It had been Evelyn Pitao who in the Autumn of 1999 had fed her handlers the all important information that led to Leonicio's capture in Davao City's Barangay Bago Gallera. For that coup, and setting up her husband, Regenaldo "Ka Emong" Alicaba Sr., the Vice Secretary of Front 33, the Armando Dumandan Command, again, in the SMRC. Evelyn had learned through her contacts that Alicaba had left the jungle on December 24th, 2008, with his 27 year old daughter, Rizalyn Alicaba Manguilimotan, Front 33's Medical Secretary, and travelled to an NPA safehouse in Panabo City's Barangay JP Laurel in order to receive needed medical treatment in Davao City.
Fingering Alicaba and his daughter for apprehension earned Evelyn a death sentence from the NPA. Yet, even as news broke about Alicaba's arrest on Janurary 18th, 2009 and the subsequent torture he allegedly suffered she remained in her adopted home town of Santo Tomas, but her time would come...
On May, 2008, a MIG-11 handler, Sergeant Helvin Bitang, arrived and picked up Danilo on his motorcycle, but this was a regular occurrence. Like many Assets Danilo had become friendly with his handler, and the two spent many a night carousing when they weren't actually working. That night Sergeant Bitang needed Danilo to pick up his allotment of free rice from the provincial capital complex in Tagum City. As someone on the provincial payroll Danilo was entitled to a free sack of rice from the Government Reserves as a sort of quasi-official fringe benefit. Being passive he was easily manipulated into regularly giving it to his "friend," Sergeant Bitang. Because Bitang drove a relatively small motorcycle the large sack of rice relegated Danilo to taking alternative transportation home that night, though Bitang at least covered the cost. Danilo was returning home by triksiad, the motorcycle sidecar taxis that poor Filipinos use in place of vehicular taxis. As the triksiad approached Our Lady of Fatima a motorcycle with two men riding tandem pulled abreast of Danilo. Danilo seemed to recognise the rear passenger according to the triksiad driver, because Danilo grinned widely. The man on the rear smiled right back as he raised his arm and squuezed off two shots from his 45 caliber pistol. Danilo literally jumped out of the moving triksiad and made a run for it. As the triksiad driver- against good judgement perhaps- pulled to the curb, he heard Danilo shout to the gunman who by now had dismounted from the motorcycle, "Unsa man ni bay!?" (Why are you doing this buddy?), lending even more creedence to the idea that Danilo knew his attacker. As Danilo reached the church steps his killer dropped him with yet another round and yet Danilo was still alive. Walking slowly up to him the gunman reached down, removed Danilo's holstered 45 pistol and then emptied its clip into Danilo, thereby killing him with his own gun. He then walked slowly over to the idling motorcycle, climbed onto the back, and disappeared into the night.
At the time of Danilo Santiago's killing just about everyone outside a narrow community within the security establishment bought into Leonicio Pitao and the NPA's claim that it had been MIG-11 that had killed Danilo. In the days following Danilo's burial his widow Mary Jean would suddenly recall that on the day he left with Sergeant Bitang, the handler had stood staring at Danilo's young children and had remarked in somber tones that it would have been a shame had Danilo not been able to watch his children grow up. The widow claims that at that moment she hadn't thought much of the remark and had even replied something to the effect that "yes, it is lucky for Danilo that you didn't have him executed before he approached your colleagues at Camp Panacan." Whether or not that exchange ever even took place, or, if it did, that it took place on the same evening of his death, the fact remains that Danilo Santiago was working as a spy, trying to reel in his brother and his brother's high ranking colleagues in the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee. Although Pitao was aware of Danilo's occupation- indeed, Danilo had told him soon after taking it- Danilo may have been perceived to have played a role in recent tactical reversals. You canno serve two masters, one will always grow dangerously dissatisfied. The AFP had no reason to harm Danilo, he was fully compliant to a fault. The one entity that DID have a real motive was the NPA.
Indeed, on May 23rd, 2010, Leonicio Pitao had his sister Evelyn murdered (along with her common law husband Roberto Dadula) in their new hometown of Santo Tomas, in Davao del Norte Province. Although the NPA allowed everyone to point the finger at the AFP the NPA finally came clean and admitted that it had Evelyn killed. The reason? Her role as a Military Asset working against the NPA...just like Danilo Santiago had been.
In between the murder of both Leonicio Pitao's two siblings, an even more disturbing case transpired. Rebelyn Maasin Pitao had been cursed from birth. A girl named "Rebellion" (phonetically) will be challenged no matter what else happens in her life, and yet there was every reason to believe Rebelyn had triumphed over adversity as she approached her 21st birthday.
I will close this entry here and resume in "Part 2."
The Secretary, or Leader, of the SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee's Merardo Arce Operational Command, Pitao also personally commands the Operational Command's company sized military element, the 1st Pulang Bagani Command, or 1PBC. From a base on the slopes of the Philippines' tallest mountain, Mount Apo, Pitao oversees all large scale tactical operations in the Davao Region, also known as Region 11, which comprises the following four provinces:
1) Davao del Sur
2) Davao del Norte
3) Davao Oriental
4) Compostela Valley, also known as "ComVal"
This region also holds the nation's second most populous city, Davao City. Because of a marriage of convenience between Pitao and that city's warlord, now-Vice Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte Pitao's personal fiefdom also includes a full 40% of that chartered city, albeit none of its urganised and therefore financially lucrative environs. Although the NEMRC, or Northeastern Mindanao Regional Committee has more manpower, and generates much more revenue for the organisation, Pitao's SMRC is viewed as the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) primary objective in its struggle to neutralise the NPA Insurgency. This is because the region is much, much more populous than the NEMRC's Region 13, also known as Caraga. While Caraga has much more in the way of natural resources, Davao Region is the Mindanao's industrial base. Controlling Davao Region offers the NPA incredible power but more so, leaves it posing a real threat to overall control of Mindanao.
Therefore, it is rather easy to understand the AFP's fixation on Leonicio Pitao. After finally apprehending him in the Autumn of 2009 he was released after little less than a year as a Good Will Gesture of the Arroyo Administration as it sought to lure the NPA back to the bargaining table in the two decades old GPH-NDFP Peace Process ("GPH" being the Government of the Philippines and "NDFP" being the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the political umbrella representing the NPA and its political wing, the CPP, or Communist Party of the Philippines in the Peace Process). To describe the AFP as "frustrated" vis a vis the Davao Region NPA resillience and its iconic figurehead Leonicio Pitao's ability to outsmart and outlast dozens of AFP Chiefs of Staff would be an extreme understatement. Indeed, the AFP created a new division, the 10ID (Infantry Division), and a new Regional Command, EASMINCOM (Eastern Mindanao Command), to more effectively deal with Pitao and his counterpart in the NEMRC, Jorge "Ka Oris" Madlos. Yet nothing has worked.
Not suprisingly more than a few AFP officers vexed with Pitao have undertaken unofficial avenues as they searched for an effective remedy. In 2008, a man on the payroll of Davao del Norte Province, blessed with an almost impossible to get no show job, was gunned down by people he knew on the front steps of Our Lady of Fatima, a Catholic Church in Tagum City's Barangay Mankilam, Purok Villa Cacacho in the aforementioned province of Davao del Norte.
The man, Danilo Santiago, had been a "seaman," Filipino speak for the national equivalent of a Merchant Marine. When he first went to see more than decades before, in 1985, he had changed his surname to Santiago, apprehensive that his birth name would keep him from gaining the necessary clearances needed to work in that industry. After all, his real surname, "Pitao" was known to the kind of people that could make those sorts of decisions. Although the brother of Leonicio Pitao he hadn't seen the NPA leader in nearly a decade. When he finally gave up travelling the world aboard ocean going freighters in 1995, to care for the three children abandoned by his estranged wife, he took a job as short order cook in Panabo City's Maria Clara Resturant. It was this job that would prove pivotal in Danilo Santiago's life.
Apparently recognised at his resturant job in 2007 he found himself dumbfounded when he learned that the AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines, was sizing him up quietly. His primary concern was that he was being primed for "Salvaging," the Filipino term for Extra-Judicial Execution. In the twelve years since he had stopped working abroad he had met a new woman, Mary Jean Espira, and began a new family. Life was going well for Danilo, until he was fingered. When the whispers of neighbours graduated into SMS (texts) and phone calls on his cellphone he realised that he had to act to save himself and perhaps his family. Travelling to the adjacent municipality of Davao City on May 23rd, 2007, he presented himself at the AFP's Camp Panacan. Within an hour he heard his name called and was ushered down a maze of hallways before finally arriving at a door without the requisite nameplate, the Headquarters of MIG-11, or, the 11th Military Intelligence Group. Interviewed by Captain Ramos (now with the 73IB), he was pointedly asked if he wanted to live to see his young children grow to adulthood. Danilo Santiago left Camp Panacan as a Military Asset, trading on his familial relationship with Leonicio Pitao. In return for assenting, he was issued a military stock 45 caliber pistol, ordered to report on the first Monday of every month, and sit back and wait to be activated by a handler, or controller.
Although Danilo was initially unaware, another of his siblings, his sister Evelyn, had also become a Military Asset when cornered as an NPA guerilla in Front 3, the Alejandro Lanaja Command, also in the SMRC. Like Danilo, she had been given an assumed identity, re-named Iris Belen Berano, and had used her earnings from the AFP to become a broker of hardwood timber. Also like Danilo, her decision would have a far reaching impact. It had been Evelyn Pitao who in the Autumn of 1999 had fed her handlers the all important information that led to Leonicio's capture in Davao City's Barangay Bago Gallera. For that coup, and setting up her husband, Regenaldo "Ka Emong" Alicaba Sr., the Vice Secretary of Front 33, the Armando Dumandan Command, again, in the SMRC. Evelyn had learned through her contacts that Alicaba had left the jungle on December 24th, 2008, with his 27 year old daughter, Rizalyn Alicaba Manguilimotan, Front 33's Medical Secretary, and travelled to an NPA safehouse in Panabo City's Barangay JP Laurel in order to receive needed medical treatment in Davao City.
Fingering Alicaba and his daughter for apprehension earned Evelyn a death sentence from the NPA. Yet, even as news broke about Alicaba's arrest on Janurary 18th, 2009 and the subsequent torture he allegedly suffered she remained in her adopted home town of Santo Tomas, but her time would come...
On May, 2008, a MIG-11 handler, Sergeant Helvin Bitang, arrived and picked up Danilo on his motorcycle, but this was a regular occurrence. Like many Assets Danilo had become friendly with his handler, and the two spent many a night carousing when they weren't actually working. That night Sergeant Bitang needed Danilo to pick up his allotment of free rice from the provincial capital complex in Tagum City. As someone on the provincial payroll Danilo was entitled to a free sack of rice from the Government Reserves as a sort of quasi-official fringe benefit. Being passive he was easily manipulated into regularly giving it to his "friend," Sergeant Bitang. Because Bitang drove a relatively small motorcycle the large sack of rice relegated Danilo to taking alternative transportation home that night, though Bitang at least covered the cost. Danilo was returning home by triksiad, the motorcycle sidecar taxis that poor Filipinos use in place of vehicular taxis. As the triksiad approached Our Lady of Fatima a motorcycle with two men riding tandem pulled abreast of Danilo. Danilo seemed to recognise the rear passenger according to the triksiad driver, because Danilo grinned widely. The man on the rear smiled right back as he raised his arm and squuezed off two shots from his 45 caliber pistol. Danilo literally jumped out of the moving triksiad and made a run for it. As the triksiad driver- against good judgement perhaps- pulled to the curb, he heard Danilo shout to the gunman who by now had dismounted from the motorcycle, "Unsa man ni bay!?" (Why are you doing this buddy?), lending even more creedence to the idea that Danilo knew his attacker. As Danilo reached the church steps his killer dropped him with yet another round and yet Danilo was still alive. Walking slowly up to him the gunman reached down, removed Danilo's holstered 45 pistol and then emptied its clip into Danilo, thereby killing him with his own gun. He then walked slowly over to the idling motorcycle, climbed onto the back, and disappeared into the night.
At the time of Danilo Santiago's killing just about everyone outside a narrow community within the security establishment bought into Leonicio Pitao and the NPA's claim that it had been MIG-11 that had killed Danilo. In the days following Danilo's burial his widow Mary Jean would suddenly recall that on the day he left with Sergeant Bitang, the handler had stood staring at Danilo's young children and had remarked in somber tones that it would have been a shame had Danilo not been able to watch his children grow up. The widow claims that at that moment she hadn't thought much of the remark and had even replied something to the effect that "yes, it is lucky for Danilo that you didn't have him executed before he approached your colleagues at Camp Panacan." Whether or not that exchange ever even took place, or, if it did, that it took place on the same evening of his death, the fact remains that Danilo Santiago was working as a spy, trying to reel in his brother and his brother's high ranking colleagues in the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee. Although Pitao was aware of Danilo's occupation- indeed, Danilo had told him soon after taking it- Danilo may have been perceived to have played a role in recent tactical reversals. You canno serve two masters, one will always grow dangerously dissatisfied. The AFP had no reason to harm Danilo, he was fully compliant to a fault. The one entity that DID have a real motive was the NPA.
Indeed, on May 23rd, 2010, Leonicio Pitao had his sister Evelyn murdered (along with her common law husband Roberto Dadula) in their new hometown of Santo Tomas, in Davao del Norte Province. Although the NPA allowed everyone to point the finger at the AFP the NPA finally came clean and admitted that it had Evelyn killed. The reason? Her role as a Military Asset working against the NPA...just like Danilo Santiago had been.
In between the murder of both Leonicio Pitao's two siblings, an even more disturbing case transpired. Rebelyn Maasin Pitao had been cursed from birth. A girl named "Rebellion" (phonetically) will be challenged no matter what else happens in her life, and yet there was every reason to believe Rebelyn had triumphed over adversity as she approached her 21st birthday.
I will close this entry here and resume in "Part 2."
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Third Quarter of 2011, Part IX: Front 14 Attacks a Trucking Company and a Sawmill in Surigao del Sur
Readers that have examine my current four part series of entries entilted, "Bad Blood: AFP Sponsored Paramilitaries in Caraga, 1991" will be amazed how nothing has really changed in almost 22 years. Actualy, there has been a very slight, almost negligible improvement in the loves of most residents. In 1991 almost every road in Agusan del Sur Province was dirt so that for four to six months out of the year it was virtually impassable to vehicular traffic. Only Butuan City, the largest population centre had electricity and potable running water. The only telephone service was from phone centres in the largest towns. Waiting to send or receive a phone call often had people waiting two days or more just to complete.
Yet, the NPA still controlled a good portion of the countryside, something that unfortunately hasn't changed. Having firsr surfaced in Caraga in 1975, by 1983 the region became the national Centre of Gravity, the area with the largest number of guerillas who controlled the largest amount of land. Led by the "Barefoot Priest," Father Francisco "Frank" Navarro, who, under the nom de guerre "Ka Migo," served as the Secretary for the Operations Command of what the NPA today calls the "Pulang Diwata Command" of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee- and who was killed in 1993, has been replaced by the even more iconic Jorge Madlos, known to the naïve and gullible folks serving in the NPA as "Ka Oris." Madlos, a native of Surigao del Norte Province's Siargo Island has seen it all and has lived to tell about it. Still, the only time Madlos can be found in the field nowadays is on the NPA's Anniversary or that of the NPA's political wing, the CPP, the Communist Party of the Philippines to which Madlos is fiercely dedicated, as is his wife, a cadre who uses the alias "Maria Malaya." While Madlos has assumed Spokesperson duties for the NDFP, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, a position he was appointed to by the CPP Party's leadership just as Aquino took office in July of 2010, his wife assumed his role as NPA-NEMRC Spokesperson.
Madlos' has been suffering from severe kidney disease and a urinary tract problem that requires a 24 hour catheter threaded through his genital so that he has pretty much been tied to whatever corner of hell he calls home for the last several years and yet, when one thinks of the insurgency in Caraga they usually envision Madlos with his Ho Chi Minh goatee and Mao cap that even the most moribund of the Chinese party hacks threw in the Yantzge two decades back. Hokey to a fault, one must offer respect to someone like Madlos, albeit grudgingly, for having remained in that stark wilderness for nearly four decades, avoiding Extra-Judicial Execution, or "Salvaging" in Filipino-speak, having also avoided being abdudcted and horribly tortured, having avoided dying in what by now must be more than two hundred tactical offencives and perhaps half that number in defencive actions as Military assets led the attacking soldiers in the capture of major camp after major camp...and of course both the physical AND ideological purges that greatly affected the NPA from 1985 to 1995...and yet Madlos has survived.
OK, now that we have graduated from Adulation 101, Madlos' NEMRC has been busy as it always is; on September 15th, 2011, in the municipality of Bislig City's Barangay San Jose, in Surigao del Sur Province, the NPA's Front 14 implemented a checkpoint in Sitio Sikahoy. A convoy from Bislig Ventures, a trucking outfit located on the edge of that same city, and en route into the city proper, was targetted for its owners refusal to pay the NPA's "Revolutionary Taxes," I mean rank extortion, I mean "Revolutionary Taxes" (cough).
The convoy consisting of five tandem dump trucks and three tractor trailers l fully loaded with coal were forced to pull onto the side of the road next to the checkpoint at 2PM. As the eight drivers were forced at gunpoint to dismount from their trucks, four guerillas set about dousing the vehicles with petrol and then lit a match. As coal is of course quite flammable, albeit slow burning, the convoy made quite a conflagration for several hours, and yet the NPA was in no hurry. Only at 5PM did it release the eight drivers for what was to be a long walk back to the company compound. The NPA of course folded up its checkpoint and withdrew into the jungle.
While the Maoists portray themselves as "Anti-Big Business" and "Anti-Environmentally Unsound Business" they are actually as avaricistic as any rapacious multi-national logging or mining outfit. Indeed, if truth be told, Artisinal, or so called "Small Scale" Miners and Loggers do much more damage to the Mindanowan Environment than any multi-national could ever do. Ehile those large corporations are fully liscenced and permitted and at least ostensibly monitored by redundant agencies like the DENR (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources), MGB (Mining and Geosciences Bureau), NCIP (National Commission on Indigenous Peoples), and other alphabetically challenging entities, the small and often illegal operations are using the most intrusive and destructive methods for the shortest term financial gain without a thought in the world about nurturing their targetted resource so as to leave it in a renewable state (so far as logging is concerned of course).
In mining, methods such as "Banlas," or "Sluice" involve he denudation of entire hillsides worth of vegetation to construct massive, engineeringly unsound wooden sluices which are then built at a steep angle so that their slag- or waste- runs directly into rivers or major creeks which also serve as the water source for the sluicing process, thus being destructive to the waterway on both ends of the process. Sluice Mining, at least here on Mindanao, entails running a very high volume of water, at relatively high pressure, through a set of gates and chutes until- hopefully- one nets a desired precious metal while 99% of the materiel being worked is dumped into a river, as opposed to a hillside from which it has been excavated...and "Banlas" is the least damaging of methods mind you.
The use of TNT and other explosives by untrained personnel without requisite engineering input does amazing amounts of damage geologically, while the use of cyanide and mercury in leeching processes naturally reek havvoc on the environment to almost unimaginable degrees.
Each year our island loses more and more of its timber and ground cover. Even leaving the island for six weeks can leave a mildly observant person shocked upon their return to see the rapid deforestation taking place. IF the NPA were TRULY concerned about such all important issues we would see them attacking ALL multi-nationals, not just the same companies over and over which merely (strongly) indicates an ulterior motive- even if one isn't privy to the hard intelligence centering upon the "Revolutionary Tax" brouhaha. Moreover, they would be implementing "No Mining" and "No Logging" bans within their considerable AORs, or Areas of Responsibility- as in "Areas of Operation" (note that the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, under Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao of the Committee's Operational Command, Merardo Arce, HAS instituted such a ban in two Davao City districts but only because he has demanded a price that interested mining companies are unwilling to pay. The rest of the SMRC's AOR has no such ban, and he has NOT implemented a logging ban in those two aforementioned districts), they would never do that because they thrive where such small scale activities flourish. Unlike the multi-nationals, who- if intelligently managed- form private paramilitaries under the guise of the Armed Forces of the Philippines "SCAA," or Special Citizen Active Auxiliary programme...Atisinal operations rarely have the means or the muscle to form such private armies and so they take "the path of least resistance," as Mao correctly predicted, and pay their "Taxes" on time. When they don't, they face a mild wake up call as the first step in remedying their delinquency. Take for example, the following case in point:
Silvio Gogo, a smalltime sawmill operator doing business in the municipality of Tagbina's Barangay Batuna in that very same province of Surigao del Sur had recently been saddled with a low supply issue. Most small time sawmills rely almost entirely on illegal logging as their source of supply. Periodically interdiction occurs in a few isolated instances and when it does, business at such sawmills suffers greatly. The small number of employees are laid off and operators like Mr.Gogo fall back on other income producing activities- sawmills rarely form one's only source of income.
Yet the NPA still expects its monthly or quarterly installment on one's "tax bill." If one is unable, or refuses to comply, they get a relatively gentle wake up call, such as the following case in point:
On September 19th, 2011, at 2AM, five guerillas from the NPA's Front 14 entered Gogo's unnamed sawmill and dragged two Yanmar table saws out into the compound. The saws, one of which was a 16khp, the other an 18khp, were then doused with petrol and set on fire. In this case the damage was P100,000 ($2,200). While that may seem downright mild to many of my foreign readers, it is in fact half a year's net income for the average peasant on Mindanao. For a small time operator like Silvio Gogo, who like virtually all such operators exists outside the benefit of any insurance policy, it very well may represent the difference between remaining in business and folding up. Should Mr.Gogo ever resume business his delinquent "tax bill" is still hanging over his head as a new debt begins the day he saws his first log. It becomes a running treadmill (no pun intended).
Yet, the NPA still controlled a good portion of the countryside, something that unfortunately hasn't changed. Having firsr surfaced in Caraga in 1975, by 1983 the region became the national Centre of Gravity, the area with the largest number of guerillas who controlled the largest amount of land. Led by the "Barefoot Priest," Father Francisco "Frank" Navarro, who, under the nom de guerre "Ka Migo," served as the Secretary for the Operations Command of what the NPA today calls the "Pulang Diwata Command" of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee- and who was killed in 1993, has been replaced by the even more iconic Jorge Madlos, known to the naïve and gullible folks serving in the NPA as "Ka Oris." Madlos, a native of Surigao del Norte Province's Siargo Island has seen it all and has lived to tell about it. Still, the only time Madlos can be found in the field nowadays is on the NPA's Anniversary or that of the NPA's political wing, the CPP, the Communist Party of the Philippines to which Madlos is fiercely dedicated, as is his wife, a cadre who uses the alias "Maria Malaya." While Madlos has assumed Spokesperson duties for the NDFP, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, a position he was appointed to by the CPP Party's leadership just as Aquino took office in July of 2010, his wife assumed his role as NPA-NEMRC Spokesperson.
Madlos' has been suffering from severe kidney disease and a urinary tract problem that requires a 24 hour catheter threaded through his genital so that he has pretty much been tied to whatever corner of hell he calls home for the last several years and yet, when one thinks of the insurgency in Caraga they usually envision Madlos with his Ho Chi Minh goatee and Mao cap that even the most moribund of the Chinese party hacks threw in the Yantzge two decades back. Hokey to a fault, one must offer respect to someone like Madlos, albeit grudgingly, for having remained in that stark wilderness for nearly four decades, avoiding Extra-Judicial Execution, or "Salvaging" in Filipino-speak, having also avoided being abdudcted and horribly tortured, having avoided dying in what by now must be more than two hundred tactical offencives and perhaps half that number in defencive actions as Military assets led the attacking soldiers in the capture of major camp after major camp...and of course both the physical AND ideological purges that greatly affected the NPA from 1985 to 1995...and yet Madlos has survived.
OK, now that we have graduated from Adulation 101, Madlos' NEMRC has been busy as it always is; on September 15th, 2011, in the municipality of Bislig City's Barangay San Jose, in Surigao del Sur Province, the NPA's Front 14 implemented a checkpoint in Sitio Sikahoy. A convoy from Bislig Ventures, a trucking outfit located on the edge of that same city, and en route into the city proper, was targetted for its owners refusal to pay the NPA's "Revolutionary Taxes," I mean rank extortion, I mean "Revolutionary Taxes" (cough).
The convoy consisting of five tandem dump trucks and three tractor trailers l fully loaded with coal were forced to pull onto the side of the road next to the checkpoint at 2PM. As the eight drivers were forced at gunpoint to dismount from their trucks, four guerillas set about dousing the vehicles with petrol and then lit a match. As coal is of course quite flammable, albeit slow burning, the convoy made quite a conflagration for several hours, and yet the NPA was in no hurry. Only at 5PM did it release the eight drivers for what was to be a long walk back to the company compound. The NPA of course folded up its checkpoint and withdrew into the jungle.
While the Maoists portray themselves as "Anti-Big Business" and "Anti-Environmentally Unsound Business" they are actually as avaricistic as any rapacious multi-national logging or mining outfit. Indeed, if truth be told, Artisinal, or so called "Small Scale" Miners and Loggers do much more damage to the Mindanowan Environment than any multi-national could ever do. Ehile those large corporations are fully liscenced and permitted and at least ostensibly monitored by redundant agencies like the DENR (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources), MGB (Mining and Geosciences Bureau), NCIP (National Commission on Indigenous Peoples), and other alphabetically challenging entities, the small and often illegal operations are using the most intrusive and destructive methods for the shortest term financial gain without a thought in the world about nurturing their targetted resource so as to leave it in a renewable state (so far as logging is concerned of course).
In mining, methods such as "Banlas," or "Sluice" involve he denudation of entire hillsides worth of vegetation to construct massive, engineeringly unsound wooden sluices which are then built at a steep angle so that their slag- or waste- runs directly into rivers or major creeks which also serve as the water source for the sluicing process, thus being destructive to the waterway on both ends of the process. Sluice Mining, at least here on Mindanao, entails running a very high volume of water, at relatively high pressure, through a set of gates and chutes until- hopefully- one nets a desired precious metal while 99% of the materiel being worked is dumped into a river, as opposed to a hillside from which it has been excavated...and "Banlas" is the least damaging of methods mind you.
The use of TNT and other explosives by untrained personnel without requisite engineering input does amazing amounts of damage geologically, while the use of cyanide and mercury in leeching processes naturally reek havvoc on the environment to almost unimaginable degrees.
Each year our island loses more and more of its timber and ground cover. Even leaving the island for six weeks can leave a mildly observant person shocked upon their return to see the rapid deforestation taking place. IF the NPA were TRULY concerned about such all important issues we would see them attacking ALL multi-nationals, not just the same companies over and over which merely (strongly) indicates an ulterior motive- even if one isn't privy to the hard intelligence centering upon the "Revolutionary Tax" brouhaha. Moreover, they would be implementing "No Mining" and "No Logging" bans within their considerable AORs, or Areas of Responsibility- as in "Areas of Operation" (note that the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, under Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao of the Committee's Operational Command, Merardo Arce, HAS instituted such a ban in two Davao City districts but only because he has demanded a price that interested mining companies are unwilling to pay. The rest of the SMRC's AOR has no such ban, and he has NOT implemented a logging ban in those two aforementioned districts), they would never do that because they thrive where such small scale activities flourish. Unlike the multi-nationals, who- if intelligently managed- form private paramilitaries under the guise of the Armed Forces of the Philippines "SCAA," or Special Citizen Active Auxiliary programme...Atisinal operations rarely have the means or the muscle to form such private armies and so they take "the path of least resistance," as Mao correctly predicted, and pay their "Taxes" on time. When they don't, they face a mild wake up call as the first step in remedying their delinquency. Take for example, the following case in point:
Silvio Gogo, a smalltime sawmill operator doing business in the municipality of Tagbina's Barangay Batuna in that very same province of Surigao del Sur had recently been saddled with a low supply issue. Most small time sawmills rely almost entirely on illegal logging as their source of supply. Periodically interdiction occurs in a few isolated instances and when it does, business at such sawmills suffers greatly. The small number of employees are laid off and operators like Mr.Gogo fall back on other income producing activities- sawmills rarely form one's only source of income.
Yet the NPA still expects its monthly or quarterly installment on one's "tax bill." If one is unable, or refuses to comply, they get a relatively gentle wake up call, such as the following case in point:
On September 19th, 2011, at 2AM, five guerillas from the NPA's Front 14 entered Gogo's unnamed sawmill and dragged two Yanmar table saws out into the compound. The saws, one of which was a 16khp, the other an 18khp, were then doused with petrol and set on fire. In this case the damage was P100,000 ($2,200). While that may seem downright mild to many of my foreign readers, it is in fact half a year's net income for the average peasant on Mindanao. For a small time operator like Silvio Gogo, who like virtually all such operators exists outside the benefit of any insurance policy, it very well may represent the difference between remaining in business and folding up. Should Mr.Gogo ever resume business his delinquent "tax bill" is still hanging over his head as a new debt begins the day he saws his first log. It becomes a running treadmill (no pun intended).
Thursday, November 10, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part IX: Ka Parago Whispers Sweet Nothings to Colonel Paniza and Datu Labawan
The SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee is one of five NPA Regional Commands on Mindanao. When discussing the SMRC one man usually comes to mind, Leonicio Pitao, better known by his nom de guerre, "Ka Parago." Pitao is a living legend here on Mindanao and is grudgingly admired by more than a few within the AFP for his ability to have brokered a favourable deal with then newly elected Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte in 1988. In exchange for 40% of Davao City and a healthy cash stipend on a monthly basis Pitao agred to relegate all NPA activity to that 40%, all of which were rural, outlying and undeveloped Districts, three in particular:
1) Paquibato
2) Toril
3) Calinan
and part of two others:
1) Baguio
2) Marilog
Before that deal was reached Davao City was an open battlefield at all hours of the day. Right Wing para militaries liked the infamous Alsa Masa (Masses Arise) did battle, as did the NPA, in most corners of the island's largest population centre. After the deal however, Davao City has become the island's, if not the nation's safest city. Of course Duterte's Davao Death Squad (see my two part series "You Can Die at Anytime: Davao Death Squad Through the Eyes of HRW") took ccare of the crime as well.
Over the years Pitao has weathered many storms, the physical purges of the mid-80s, the ideological purges of the early-90s under the NPA/CPP Re-affirmist scheme, an incarceration after being captured while visiting his family on All Souls Day 2, and mostly recently, the brutal Extra-Judicial Killing of his daughter Rebelyn, a substitute teacher with no political or militant involvement in March of 2009. Today Leonicio Pitao commands the the SEMRC's military operations as Secretary of its Military Command. He also personally command's the operations Command's company sized military entity, the PBC1, or 1st Pulang Bagani Company (Pulang Bagani meaning "Red Warrior"). From a set of rotating base camps high up the slopes of Mount Apo, the nation's highest peak, the NPA in Davao City remains just as firmly entrenched as it has ever been since withdrawing to the city's outer limits in 1988.
On October 1st, 2011, Pitao opened up the Fourth Quarter of 2011 by publicly ridiculing the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or AFP, for blaming the NPA for the abduction, and presumed killing of two local tribal leaders. The two missing men:
1) Datu Lorenzo Pendio
2) Datu Marcelino Gumatao
went missing on...According to the AFP's Colonel Lyndon Paniza, Commanding Officer of the 1003rd Infantry Brigade, the men were killed for not paying "Revolutionary Taxes," the politically correct euphanism used to tidy up rank extortion. Pitao claims that the NPA does not force civilians to pay "Sablag," NPA-speak for "rank extortion." Of course Pitao is lying through his teeth but hey, nobody's hands are clean on this island.
Pitao, not suprisingly, accuses Datu Ruben Labawan of doing his master's bidding. The "master" would of course be Colonel Paniza. Paniza's 1003rd Infantry Brigade entered into a pact with Datu Labawan back in 2002 when the brigade's then-Commanding Officer, Colonel Eduardo Rosario sanctioned an extant tribal paramilitary and commissioned it to operate against the NPA. Labawan, and his comrade in arms, Joel Unad then held a big to do where they whored their culture by not only declaring Rosario to be a tribal chieftain ("Datu"), but then-Secretary of the Department of National Defense, the late Angelo Reyes as well. Colonel cum Datu Rosario then naturally gave free rein to Unad and Labawan.
Their organisation, ATADI, or, Ata Tribal Association of Davao Incorporated, then used their paramilitary, the Alamara, to move peasants, including fellow tribesmen, off of land they planned to claim on the CADT Program (Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title), with an eye on both logging AND mining. The Alamara was dissolved under pressure from human rights groups but only in name because its members were simply enrolled in the AFP's CAA Program as CAFGU soldiers. It was only a matter of months before the Alamara slash CAFGU became the "Bagani Long Range Platoons." Different name, same game.
Pitao is also saying, or rather he said on October 1st, that the barangay captains of Paquibato District's Barangays Lumiad, Salapawan, Malibog, Tapak AND Mapula each got P250,000 ($5,700) for the barangay level approval of two extant mining exploration applications targeting those barangays. The applications, for:
1) Alberto Mining Corporation
2) Penson's Mining Corporation
Many of those same barangay captains, certainly Jaime Manyawron of Mapula and Domingo Boycala of Salapawan are ATADI front men. Pitao's problems with ATADI are more than a decade old. In theast of several attempts on Datu Ruben Labawan's life, on August 2nd, 2010, he and some other high ranking datus were en route to a "payong-payong" (community meeting) at the 1003rd Headquarters when their group of motorcycles was ambushed by Pitao's NPA guerillas who ended up killing two AFP soldiers deployed as a security detail to Labawan, one of which just happened to be his brother. So...Pitao says that the two abducted men were actually NPA supporters qho were kidnapped, and presumably killed, by ATADI so as to turn locals against the NPA and ignite a tribal war, or "Pangayaw."
Whomever abducted the two men, at this point it really doesn't matter, killed them.
1) Paquibato
2) Toril
3) Calinan
and part of two others:
1) Baguio
2) Marilog
Before that deal was reached Davao City was an open battlefield at all hours of the day. Right Wing para militaries liked the infamous Alsa Masa (Masses Arise) did battle, as did the NPA, in most corners of the island's largest population centre. After the deal however, Davao City has become the island's, if not the nation's safest city. Of course Duterte's Davao Death Squad (see my two part series "You Can Die at Anytime: Davao Death Squad Through the Eyes of HRW") took ccare of the crime as well.
Over the years Pitao has weathered many storms, the physical purges of the mid-80s, the ideological purges of the early-90s under the NPA/CPP Re-affirmist scheme, an incarceration after being captured while visiting his family on All Souls Day 2, and mostly recently, the brutal Extra-Judicial Killing of his daughter Rebelyn, a substitute teacher with no political or militant involvement in March of 2009. Today Leonicio Pitao commands the the SEMRC's military operations as Secretary of its Military Command. He also personally command's the operations Command's company sized military entity, the PBC1, or 1st Pulang Bagani Company (Pulang Bagani meaning "Red Warrior"). From a set of rotating base camps high up the slopes of Mount Apo, the nation's highest peak, the NPA in Davao City remains just as firmly entrenched as it has ever been since withdrawing to the city's outer limits in 1988.
On October 1st, 2011, Pitao opened up the Fourth Quarter of 2011 by publicly ridiculing the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or AFP, for blaming the NPA for the abduction, and presumed killing of two local tribal leaders. The two missing men:
1) Datu Lorenzo Pendio
2) Datu Marcelino Gumatao
went missing on...According to the AFP's Colonel Lyndon Paniza, Commanding Officer of the 1003rd Infantry Brigade, the men were killed for not paying "Revolutionary Taxes," the politically correct euphanism used to tidy up rank extortion. Pitao claims that the NPA does not force civilians to pay "Sablag," NPA-speak for "rank extortion." Of course Pitao is lying through his teeth but hey, nobody's hands are clean on this island.
Pitao, not suprisingly, accuses Datu Ruben Labawan of doing his master's bidding. The "master" would of course be Colonel Paniza. Paniza's 1003rd Infantry Brigade entered into a pact with Datu Labawan back in 2002 when the brigade's then-Commanding Officer, Colonel Eduardo Rosario sanctioned an extant tribal paramilitary and commissioned it to operate against the NPA. Labawan, and his comrade in arms, Joel Unad then held a big to do where they whored their culture by not only declaring Rosario to be a tribal chieftain ("Datu"), but then-Secretary of the Department of National Defense, the late Angelo Reyes as well. Colonel cum Datu Rosario then naturally gave free rein to Unad and Labawan.
Their organisation, ATADI, or, Ata Tribal Association of Davao Incorporated, then used their paramilitary, the Alamara, to move peasants, including fellow tribesmen, off of land they planned to claim on the CADT Program (Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title), with an eye on both logging AND mining. The Alamara was dissolved under pressure from human rights groups but only in name because its members were simply enrolled in the AFP's CAA Program as CAFGU soldiers. It was only a matter of months before the Alamara slash CAFGU became the "Bagani Long Range Platoons." Different name, same game.
Pitao is also saying, or rather he said on October 1st, that the barangay captains of Paquibato District's Barangays Lumiad, Salapawan, Malibog, Tapak AND Mapula each got P250,000 ($5,700) for the barangay level approval of two extant mining exploration applications targeting those barangays. The applications, for:
1) Alberto Mining Corporation
2) Penson's Mining Corporation
Many of those same barangay captains, certainly Jaime Manyawron of Mapula and Domingo Boycala of Salapawan are ATADI front men. Pitao's problems with ATADI are more than a decade old. In theast of several attempts on Datu Ruben Labawan's life, on August 2nd, 2010, he and some other high ranking datus were en route to a "payong-payong" (community meeting) at the 1003rd Headquarters when their group of motorcycles was ambushed by Pitao's NPA guerillas who ended up killing two AFP soldiers deployed as a security detail to Labawan, one of which just happened to be his brother. So...Pitao says that the two abducted men were actually NPA supporters qho were kidnapped, and presumably killed, by ATADI so as to turn locals against the NPA and ignite a tribal war, or "Pangayaw."
Whomever abducted the two men, at this point it really doesn't matter, killed them.
Monday, August 29, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Third Quarter of 2011, Part IV: Davao Region, Quiet but NOT Sleeping
Up until the Spring of 2011 the Davao Region, or the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee was the most active of the NPA's five Regional Committees on Mindanao. Towards the end of spring, midway through the year's second quarter, Davao Region switched up its furious pace as NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee and NCMRC, or Northcentral Mindanao Regional Committee both grabbed the baton and quickly picked up the pace. Building their own momentum both Regional Committtees re-established themselves in pacified areas. For NEMRC they have once again firmly established themselves in Surigao del Norte Province. NCMRC has done the same in Misamis Oriental Province.
Still, Davao Region isn't exactly sitting on the bench.
On August 14th, 2011 a blue compact automobile slowed down as it approached Task Force Davao's Sitio Mahayahay Checkpoint in Davao City's Barangay Mawab. Located in that city's Paquibato District the checkpoint is ground zero for the NPA Insurgency in that municipality. As I have well noted time and again Davao City's local warlord, Vice Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte had long ago formed a mutually beneficial arrangement with local NPA leader Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao. In exchange for Parago's agreeing to keep the rest of Davao City insurgency free Duterte has graciously offered the NPA carte blanche in four of the city's poorest, outlying districts:
1) Calinan
2) Toril
3) Marilog
and of course
4) Paquibato
Duterte has honored the gentleman's agreement to a tee and with a couple of very notable exceptions (usually confined to adjacent Baguio District), so has Ka Parago. Task Force Davao was created in the Spring of 2004 after a pair of high profile bombings by ASG, or the Abu Sayyaf Group and its closely allied but now defunct RSM, or Rajah Solaiman Movement. The two bombings:
1) Davao International Airport, where the Arrivals Kiosk, a crude cinder block structure across the service road from the actual terminal where friends and family of arriving passengers congregate to wait was targetted by a very powerful IED, or Improvised Explosive Device (as in "bomb") that killed 21 people and wounded an astounding 145 more. The powerful device was concealed inside a common black backpack that was placed under a row of cheap aluminum framed seats for added shrapnel.
2) Sasa Wharf, Davao City's ferry wharf which like most ports in the Philippines is almost a city unto itself. Two young men ordered some barbecue chicken from a take away stall. As the stall workers were preoccupied with filling their order the youngmen deposited another black backpack under the stall's front counter and left with their chicken. The explosion killed 17 people and wounded 56.
In the aftermath Duterte, then serving as Mayor and fearing that the island's Islamic Insurgencies had brought their violence into Davao City had the AFP create a dedicated force to serve as the city's first line of defence against the envisioned threat by Islamic insurgents. The nascent Task Force, or TF as they are most commonly referred to, began life with some very notable Human Rights abuses against Davao City's Muslim minority. Initially Mayor Duterte blamed the two bombings on al Qaeda. The PNP, or Philippine National Police maintained that they were committed by JI, or Jemmah Islammiyah. After all, the Indonesian Islamo-fascist organisation had recently undertaken the equaly vile Bali bombing of a discoteque frequented by Australians. The group was the flavour de jour and so, JI it was. The AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines however were non plussed with all the grand theorising about Bin Laden and Indonesians swimming from Bali to Mindanao. They were absolutely sure that none other than Mindanao's very own MILF was responsible. For all his al Qaeda fantasies Mayor Duterte must have put stock in the AFP's version of events because he authorised raids amounting to little more than low intensity warfare against known functionaries of the MILF and BIAF, or Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the MILF military arm, who were unlucky enough to be residing in Davao City.
By the summer more rational thinking had returned, at least locally, since Manila was pushing through with the Department of Justice charging of MILF Founder slash Chairman Hashim Salamat and a number of his underlings for the two bombings. Though the charges wouldn't last long, just like the certainty of MILF involvement, TF Davao remained a part of the local landscape ever after.
The round fired by an occupant of the aforementioned blue automobile very narrowly missed striking the head of the AFP Corporal commanding the checkpoint and sending nearby food stalls and their customers into a state of pandemonium as the auto burned rubber speeding out of the city and into the adjacent municipality of Santa Cruz.
In the adjoining district of Paquibato's Barangay Paradise Embac is once again becoming the focus of the AFP's 69IB (Infantry Battalion) in its drive against the NPA. In early July of 2011 the 69th ensconced a detachment in one the barangay's two elementary schools, Paradise Embac Annex, under Second Lieutenant Tamayo with Seargent Garcia as his second in command. The barangay, like three fourths of its parent district Paquibato is under a parallel NPA Government so that an AFP garrison isn't well liked even if it wasn't living in an elementary school.
23 year old Redan Sumaria from the adjoining barangay, Paquibato Poblacion, claims that 2LT.Tamayo himself personally beat him when he was stopped at a 69IB checkpoint, after being told he "looked like NPA materiel." Likewise, 26 year old Dodong de Jesus of Barangay Paradise Embac's Sitio Upper Pandaitan claims it was Tamayo who pummeled his chest for no apparent reason at a checkpoint at that barangay's Crossing Guinobatan (Guinobatan Bridge in the sitio bearing that same name). On August 6th Tamayao and Sgt.Garcia allegedly beat Arim Maygon into unconsciousness for no apparent reason at the checkpoint immediately outside the school garrison. Others, like brothers Rudy and Cerilo Corbito complain that soldiers from the garrison have forbade them from working their own farms based upon allegations of support for the NPA.
In most NPA influenced areas these are run of the mill occurrences. On one hand the AFP and to a lesser extent the PNP harrasses and even tortures people it suspects of collusion with the NPA (those absolutely known to be in bed with the Maoists face a much worse fate). Yet the same holds true for those refusing to aid the NPA. Said to be agents of the state the NPA treats them even worse, usually expelling them from their own communities at the very least. The result being that one is damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Vis a vis the school garrison in Paquibato District, the Davao City Council has come out on the side of the villagers though one may also posit that they have come out on the side of the NPA, in which case, to be frank, it would be par for the course. Councillors Jimmy Dureza and Leah Librado Yap have co-authored a Resolution to bar the AFP from ensconcing itself within civilian institutions with a proviso expelling them from their garrison in Paradise Embac Annex. On August 25th Vice Mayor Duterte, on his television show "Ato ni Bay," (one of two weekly TV shows) urged the pair to follow through with their fight to neutralise the 69IB. Of course there is no suprise there, friend of the NPA that he is with nearly 35 years of scratching Ka Parago's back.
Duterte said that despite the Resolution passing unopposed on its first of three City Council Readings just that week, that they should still appeal directly to the Mayor, who of course is none other than Sarah "Inday" Duterte Carpio, his daughter. Duterte however tempered his support for the Resolution by noting that IF the underlying motive is to protect the well being of the students in the school slash garrison, the NPA would never attack a school even if full of AFP so that even in trying to appear fair and balanced Duterte ended up coming off like the NPA cheerleader he is, amazing, absolutely amazing.
Meanwhile, numerous residents of Barangay Paradise Embac's Puroks #6, 7, and 8 have filed yet another complaint with the City Council alleging that the 69IB's Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Patarata personally went door to door and menacingly pressured them into signing newly formulated "waivers" allowing his battalion to ensconce themselves in schools and other public buildings. Anyone who wavered or dared to resist was then told that they would be considered to be in support of the NPA. Considering the gasoline enema administered to a suspected ASG member in Basilan Province just weeks prior, and well publicised on Mindanao because of the unusual prosecution of the soldiers responsible, I am sure that LTC.Patarata got exactly what he wanted.
Panabo City, in Davao del Norte Province sits immediately adjacent to Davao City and lies within the city's SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee AOR, or Area of Responsibility (as in "Area of Operations"). The NPA's SMRC last targetted Panabo this past spring with the ballsy tactical strike on the municipality's CPO, or City Police Office. On Friday, August 26th, 2011 in the city's Barangay Tibungol, a powerful IED detonated at the rear of Sibubon Elementary School. The powerful blast took place before daybreak, just 10 meters from a stage spanning the rear of the school. The blast is a bit mysterious since nothing was scheduled to take place on the stage, let alone anything having to do with the AFP or PNP, the usual targets of NPA Tactical Operations. However, 50 meters of detonation cord was found near the blast site leaving little question as to whether or not the NPA was involved.
Despite AFP propaganda claims the NPA does NOT utilise landmines. A typical NPA ambush DOES utilise IEDs but ALWAYS command controlled. In other words, the IED is directly detonated by an NPA guerilla via an electrical cable extending from the IED. This allows a carefully controlled detonation and prevents inadvertant detonation by other, non-legal targets. In fact, the NPA is the only organisation in Mindanao utilising command controlled detonation. The MILF/BIAF swears it no longer employs IEDs but when it did they were detonated by cordless remote, and prior to 2002 had utilised VDIEDs, Victim Detonated IEDs, a fancy acronym for what essentially amounts to a self-manufactured landmine, pressure detonated devices of varying strengths. So, this was an NPA detonation, but why there and why then remain a mystery.
Two men were sighted running from the blast site and into a rice paddy before disappearing into the jungle. Upon responding the 10ID (Infantry Division) EOD, or Explosives Ordanance Detachment discovered four other primed IEDs in the general vicinity. If I wanted to play armchair theorist I would reckon that the two men seen exiting the scene after the blast were members of an NPA IED detachment in the vicinity to secrete a number of IEDs for three ambushes, present and future. With a novice member of the detachment aboard the detachment leader took the opportunity to teach the novice how to to prime an IED for detonation. The site, behind the school was out of the way and shielded from the road upon which the IED probably would have been placed. An inadvertant detonation spooked them and they quickly escaped without retrieving their four other primed IEDs. Anyway, just a theory.
Still, Davao Region isn't exactly sitting on the bench.
On August 14th, 2011 a blue compact automobile slowed down as it approached Task Force Davao's Sitio Mahayahay Checkpoint in Davao City's Barangay Mawab. Located in that city's Paquibato District the checkpoint is ground zero for the NPA Insurgency in that municipality. As I have well noted time and again Davao City's local warlord, Vice Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte had long ago formed a mutually beneficial arrangement with local NPA leader Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao. In exchange for Parago's agreeing to keep the rest of Davao City insurgency free Duterte has graciously offered the NPA carte blanche in four of the city's poorest, outlying districts:
1) Calinan
2) Toril
3) Marilog
and of course
4) Paquibato
Duterte has honored the gentleman's agreement to a tee and with a couple of very notable exceptions (usually confined to adjacent Baguio District), so has Ka Parago. Task Force Davao was created in the Spring of 2004 after a pair of high profile bombings by ASG, or the Abu Sayyaf Group and its closely allied but now defunct RSM, or Rajah Solaiman Movement. The two bombings:
1) Davao International Airport, where the Arrivals Kiosk, a crude cinder block structure across the service road from the actual terminal where friends and family of arriving passengers congregate to wait was targetted by a very powerful IED, or Improvised Explosive Device (as in "bomb") that killed 21 people and wounded an astounding 145 more. The powerful device was concealed inside a common black backpack that was placed under a row of cheap aluminum framed seats for added shrapnel.
2) Sasa Wharf, Davao City's ferry wharf which like most ports in the Philippines is almost a city unto itself. Two young men ordered some barbecue chicken from a take away stall. As the stall workers were preoccupied with filling their order the youngmen deposited another black backpack under the stall's front counter and left with their chicken. The explosion killed 17 people and wounded 56.
In the aftermath Duterte, then serving as Mayor and fearing that the island's Islamic Insurgencies had brought their violence into Davao City had the AFP create a dedicated force to serve as the city's first line of defence against the envisioned threat by Islamic insurgents. The nascent Task Force, or TF as they are most commonly referred to, began life with some very notable Human Rights abuses against Davao City's Muslim minority. Initially Mayor Duterte blamed the two bombings on al Qaeda. The PNP, or Philippine National Police maintained that they were committed by JI, or Jemmah Islammiyah. After all, the Indonesian Islamo-fascist organisation had recently undertaken the equaly vile Bali bombing of a discoteque frequented by Australians. The group was the flavour de jour and so, JI it was. The AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines however were non plussed with all the grand theorising about Bin Laden and Indonesians swimming from Bali to Mindanao. They were absolutely sure that none other than Mindanao's very own MILF was responsible. For all his al Qaeda fantasies Mayor Duterte must have put stock in the AFP's version of events because he authorised raids amounting to little more than low intensity warfare against known functionaries of the MILF and BIAF, or Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the MILF military arm, who were unlucky enough to be residing in Davao City.
By the summer more rational thinking had returned, at least locally, since Manila was pushing through with the Department of Justice charging of MILF Founder slash Chairman Hashim Salamat and a number of his underlings for the two bombings. Though the charges wouldn't last long, just like the certainty of MILF involvement, TF Davao remained a part of the local landscape ever after.
The round fired by an occupant of the aforementioned blue automobile very narrowly missed striking the head of the AFP Corporal commanding the checkpoint and sending nearby food stalls and their customers into a state of pandemonium as the auto burned rubber speeding out of the city and into the adjacent municipality of Santa Cruz.
In the adjoining district of Paquibato's Barangay Paradise Embac is once again becoming the focus of the AFP's 69IB (Infantry Battalion) in its drive against the NPA. In early July of 2011 the 69th ensconced a detachment in one the barangay's two elementary schools, Paradise Embac Annex, under Second Lieutenant Tamayo with Seargent Garcia as his second in command. The barangay, like three fourths of its parent district Paquibato is under a parallel NPA Government so that an AFP garrison isn't well liked even if it wasn't living in an elementary school.
23 year old Redan Sumaria from the adjoining barangay, Paquibato Poblacion, claims that 2LT.Tamayo himself personally beat him when he was stopped at a 69IB checkpoint, after being told he "looked like NPA materiel." Likewise, 26 year old Dodong de Jesus of Barangay Paradise Embac's Sitio Upper Pandaitan claims it was Tamayo who pummeled his chest for no apparent reason at a checkpoint at that barangay's Crossing Guinobatan (Guinobatan Bridge in the sitio bearing that same name). On August 6th Tamayao and Sgt.Garcia allegedly beat Arim Maygon into unconsciousness for no apparent reason at the checkpoint immediately outside the school garrison. Others, like brothers Rudy and Cerilo Corbito complain that soldiers from the garrison have forbade them from working their own farms based upon allegations of support for the NPA.
In most NPA influenced areas these are run of the mill occurrences. On one hand the AFP and to a lesser extent the PNP harrasses and even tortures people it suspects of collusion with the NPA (those absolutely known to be in bed with the Maoists face a much worse fate). Yet the same holds true for those refusing to aid the NPA. Said to be agents of the state the NPA treats them even worse, usually expelling them from their own communities at the very least. The result being that one is damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Vis a vis the school garrison in Paquibato District, the Davao City Council has come out on the side of the villagers though one may also posit that they have come out on the side of the NPA, in which case, to be frank, it would be par for the course. Councillors Jimmy Dureza and Leah Librado Yap have co-authored a Resolution to bar the AFP from ensconcing itself within civilian institutions with a proviso expelling them from their garrison in Paradise Embac Annex. On August 25th Vice Mayor Duterte, on his television show "Ato ni Bay," (one of two weekly TV shows) urged the pair to follow through with their fight to neutralise the 69IB. Of course there is no suprise there, friend of the NPA that he is with nearly 35 years of scratching Ka Parago's back.
Duterte said that despite the Resolution passing unopposed on its first of three City Council Readings just that week, that they should still appeal directly to the Mayor, who of course is none other than Sarah "Inday" Duterte Carpio, his daughter. Duterte however tempered his support for the Resolution by noting that IF the underlying motive is to protect the well being of the students in the school slash garrison, the NPA would never attack a school even if full of AFP so that even in trying to appear fair and balanced Duterte ended up coming off like the NPA cheerleader he is, amazing, absolutely amazing.
Meanwhile, numerous residents of Barangay Paradise Embac's Puroks #6, 7, and 8 have filed yet another complaint with the City Council alleging that the 69IB's Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Patarata personally went door to door and menacingly pressured them into signing newly formulated "waivers" allowing his battalion to ensconce themselves in schools and other public buildings. Anyone who wavered or dared to resist was then told that they would be considered to be in support of the NPA. Considering the gasoline enema administered to a suspected ASG member in Basilan Province just weeks prior, and well publicised on Mindanao because of the unusual prosecution of the soldiers responsible, I am sure that LTC.Patarata got exactly what he wanted.
Panabo City, in Davao del Norte Province sits immediately adjacent to Davao City and lies within the city's SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee AOR, or Area of Responsibility (as in "Area of Operations"). The NPA's SMRC last targetted Panabo this past spring with the ballsy tactical strike on the municipality's CPO, or City Police Office. On Friday, August 26th, 2011 in the city's Barangay Tibungol, a powerful IED detonated at the rear of Sibubon Elementary School. The powerful blast took place before daybreak, just 10 meters from a stage spanning the rear of the school. The blast is a bit mysterious since nothing was scheduled to take place on the stage, let alone anything having to do with the AFP or PNP, the usual targets of NPA Tactical Operations. However, 50 meters of detonation cord was found near the blast site leaving little question as to whether or not the NPA was involved.
Despite AFP propaganda claims the NPA does NOT utilise landmines. A typical NPA ambush DOES utilise IEDs but ALWAYS command controlled. In other words, the IED is directly detonated by an NPA guerilla via an electrical cable extending from the IED. This allows a carefully controlled detonation and prevents inadvertant detonation by other, non-legal targets. In fact, the NPA is the only organisation in Mindanao utilising command controlled detonation. The MILF/BIAF swears it no longer employs IEDs but when it did they were detonated by cordless remote, and prior to 2002 had utilised VDIEDs, Victim Detonated IEDs, a fancy acronym for what essentially amounts to a self-manufactured landmine, pressure detonated devices of varying strengths. So, this was an NPA detonation, but why there and why then remain a mystery.
Two men were sighted running from the blast site and into a rice paddy before disappearing into the jungle. Upon responding the 10ID (Infantry Division) EOD, or Explosives Ordanance Detachment discovered four other primed IEDs in the general vicinity. If I wanted to play armchair theorist I would reckon that the two men seen exiting the scene after the blast were members of an NPA IED detachment in the vicinity to secrete a number of IEDs for three ambushes, present and future. With a novice member of the detachment aboard the detachment leader took the opportunity to teach the novice how to to prime an IED for detonation. The site, behind the school was out of the way and shielded from the road upon which the IED probably would have been placed. An inadvertant detonation spooked them and they quickly escaped without retrieving their four other primed IEDs. Anyway, just a theory.
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