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.
Showing posts with label MIG-11. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIG-11. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
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."
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