In "Part 1" of this three part entry I discussed the iconic NPA leader Leonicio Pitao. Much better known by his moniker "Ka Parago," Pitao joined the NPA in 1978 and despite the best efforts of dozens of very capable AFP and PNP commanders, noone has ever been able to stop him for long (the "AFP" and "PNP" being the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police). Indeed, Pitao's lone arrest resulted from his sister, Evelyn Pitao, who at the time was herself an NPA guerilla in Front 3, the Alejandro Lanaja Command, in Pitao's own Southern Mindanao Regional Committee (SMRC), who ended up serving the AFP as a Deep Penetration Agent until that arrest, when she was then pulled out of service.
Their brother Danilo, who in 1985 changed his surname to Santiago so as to stay one step ahead of inquisitive bureaucrats as he first attempted to leave the Philippines to serve aboard ocean going freighters, had stayed clear of the Maoist Insurgency that had seduced his brother and sister. I discussed both his sad fate and perhaps the poetically justified fate of Evelyn, but left the jist of my entry for this, the second and concluding part.
Rebelyn Maasin Pitao was Leonicio and his wife Evangeline Maasin Pitao's third child. Though the only one of their five children to be given a "revolutionary" name, Rebelyn was anything but a rebel. A quiet, selfless, unassuming young lady, she had not gravitated towards her father's activities or even his political leanings. Instead ahe had gained a university education and began working as a substitute teacher at Saint Peter's College of Technology in her hometown of Davao City.
Each morning at 630AM Rebelyn would leave her mother's home in Gallera de Oro Subdivision in Davao City's Talomo District. Walking the quiet streets of Barangay Bago Gallera she would catch a triksiad, or motorcycle sidecar taxi, to jeepney terminal in Barangay Bago Aplaya where she would then take a jeepney to the school where she eagerly welcomed her second grade students. At 445PM each day she would leave the school and walk to the Terminal where she would take her second triksiad of the day, always arriving at home by 645PM. It was this regular schedule that ended up costing Rebelyn Maasin Pitao her life.
On the evening of March 4th, 2009, Rebelyn climbed into Danny Peliciano's triksiad for the return trip home. A middle aged female passenger, Dina Talaboc, was already waiting, and just before Peliciano got ready to leave the terminal, two men in their late 20s or early 30s climbed in as well. The short ride to Barangay Bago Gallera was uneventful but as they cruised down Talomo National Hiway a white Toyota Revo cargo van almost passed them at a high rate of speed but as it pulled abreast of Peliciano's triksiad a male passenger was staring daggers at the passengers before the van decelerated and fell in behind the triksiad. Then, 300 meters before the Gallera de Oro Subdivision's entrance, that same white van did finally pass them but then immediately cut in front of them as it slammed on its brakes.
As Peliciano stopped his triksiad two men jumped out of the van wielding 45 caliber pistols. As the female passenger, Dina Talaboc, and Danny Peliciano began to quickly climb out of their seats the two male passengers both grabbed Rebelyn. Both Peliciano and Ms.Talaboc ran screaming as Rebelyn pleaded with them to help her. As Peliciano turned around, perhaps feeling guilty about leaving Rebelyn to her unfortunate fate, the two gunmen drew down on him and warned him to keep running. As Peliciano did just that, not stopping until he got to the Talomo District Police Station, while Rebelyn was dragged into the van which then sped off into the night.
At the police station officers listened to whay for them is a run of the mill report and then brought Peliciano with them as they notified Rebelyn's mother Evangeline. Knowing the significance of the purported victim they immediately notified police brass who in turn notified Davao City Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. Counter-intuitively Duterte is NOT anti-NPA. In fact, after first becoming in Mayor in 1988 he surrendered more than 40% of his city to Leonicio Pitao along with a quarterly stipend in exchange for Pitao guaranteeing to keep the NPA out of the rest of the city. In the mid-1980s, the NPA in Davao City turned Mindanao's population centre into a veritible blood bath. Duterte's concession spared the bulk of the city's population and virtually business interests from that very real concern.
As the province around Davao City, Davao del Sur, continued to suffer the pains of insurgency Davao City proper was a magnet for investment, the one place investors felt assured of avoiding the pressures of armed attack, Kidnap for Ransom (KFR), and of course, in NPA-speak, "Revolutionary Taxes." The relationship was highly advantageous to both Duterte AND Pitao. While it cut the latter off from significant streams of revenue, AFP Intelligence estimates that by the time Rebelyn's murder took place, in the First Quarter of 2009, Pitao's Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, the SMRC- which covers parts of North Cotabato, Surigao del Sur, and Agusan del Sur Provinces in addition to all of the Davao Region, aka Region 11- was raking in an impressive P20 Million every Quarter just from the Davao Region's four provinces alone. Of course that P20 Million, equal to nearly $500,000, is a conservative estimate. Ergo, losing the 60% of Davao City which contained the city's industrial AND commercial base hasn't hurt the NPA in the least. Consigning the 40% of the city0containing its most rural districts has allowed the NPA to develop a power base that is just about untouchable at this point.
Therefore then-Mayor Duterte was very concerned about what had transpired within his city's borders. As powerful as Duterte is, and make no mistake he is VERY powerful, he has nothing on Leonicio Pitao. Pitao had stupidly entrusted his family's safety- their very lives- to Duterte's "deal," and now the man's daughter had been violently abducted. It must have been a rare sleepless night for the Mayor, and a long day afterwards as the media descended upon City Hall. The mystery didn't last long though...
At 530PM the next day, March 5th, 2009, rice farmer Rafael "Raffy" Agres and his friend Noel Lanoy, a labourer on a nearby banana plantation, were walking down a dirt road in the nearby municipality of Carmen, in Davao del Norte Province. As the two walked Raffy happened to glance into a shallow irrigation canal running parallel to the road. All of a sudden he stopped and screamed that he had just seen a body. Noel looked to see for himself and soon realised that what he had first assumed to be a fallen banana trunk was actually a person's body. Raffy excitedly opined that it had to be a "Salvaging" victim, a comment that some might find highly curious if they aren't all that familiar with our fair isle. Indeed, inside of Davao City alone the Church-based NGO "Tambayan Center for Childrens' Rights" had recorded 894 "Salvaging" victims just in a 10 year period, in other words, on average 89 people a year were executed extra-judicially. Of those 894, 80 were under the age of 18 with the youngest being 12 years old (and some readers actually wonder why I use Duterte as a verbal punching bag!). Indeed, in that very same spot where that body had just been sighted, a Salvaging victim had been dumped 5 years before.
The unnamed road, in Barangay San Isidro is bereft of much more than rice paddies. The only house in sight of the body is that of Egles Brieta and her family. Curiously, despite the home being less than 100 meters away the killers, or their compatriots, had chosen that exact spot to dump at least two bodies. Moreover, despite vehicular traffic almost never passing down the road, neither Ms.Brieta nor anyone in her family hear anything on either occasion.
The Carmen Municipal Police Office, like all area police stations, had been alerted to the Rebelyn Pitao Abduction and upon learning that the body was female alerted the Davao del Norte Police Provincial Office, or PPO. As soon as operatives arrived and compared a stock photo of the missing girl to the partially nude body in the canal, they knew that Rebelyn Pitao was no longer missing. Her discovery didn't shock her family at all. The initial shock of realising that whomever had abducted her Rebelyn had tossed all the heretofore (unofficial) Rules of Engagement out with the trash had quickly dissipated. After that initial shock disappeared her entire family knew that if she ever surfaced it would be as a cadaver.
After recovering Rebelyn's body it was transported to a local funeral home. In the Philippines autopsies are rarely- if ever- performed under clinical conditions. A private physician contracted to an agency performs at the funeral home. Obviously nothing too technical is ever performed OR discovered. In Rebelyn's autopsy the attending physician (he is not a pathologist of course) noted rope burns on her neck, five puncture wounds, all with the same ice pick-like implement, two above her left breast, two below that same breast, both of which lacerated her liver, and one in her lung, and most troubling of all, she had been raped by a materiel object. The only "good news," and I mean this strictly in the relative sense, is that she had died before midnite. Having been found 60 kilometers from the abduction site, where she was taken at nearly 7PM, she wouldn't have suffered excruciatingly long. Her attackers finished her off rather quickly.
Within two days Leonicio Pitao named four AFP Military Agents attached to Military Intelligence Group-11 (MIG-11), operating out of an AFP safehouse in Panabo City, just over the border from Davao City's Paquibato District:
1) Sergeant Helvin Bitang
2) Corporal Orly Pedring Pedregosa
3) Sergeant Ben Tipait
4) Sergeant Adan Masluao
While many outside the security echelon wondered just why the AFP refused to act on Pitao's information many within the AFP at least brushed off Pitao's "information" as ridiculous nonsense. First of all, Ben Tipait and Adan Masluao don't exist, at least under those names. Secondly, both of the two actual men named happened to have been Danilo Santiago's AFP handlers- Santiago of course being Pitao's brother. Pitao's claims of an "NPA investigation" was sheer bufoonery. Worse yet, his publicising these men's names was consigning them to, at the very least, lives of extreme paranoia, if not an actual torturous murder.
Leonicio Pitao was fully aware that his brother Danilo had been killed by an NPA SPARU Team. SPARU, or Specially Armed Partisan Units, often misrepresented as "Sparrows," are three to five man teams of highly experienced NPA cadres. Almost always in their late 20s or early 30s, and thereby having at least 15 years experience as NPA guerillas, they are basically the NPA's Extra-Judicial Execution entities though unlike their counterparts in the AFP, they never engage in abductions. The NPA likes to claim it has a form of Due Process, that it "arrests" people who have been "charged" in their so called "People's Court." In reality, no such court exists outside of one or two high ranking members ordering an execution and if the SPARU gets your name, rest assured that they are being sent to kill you, not arrest you.
Although his sister Evelyn was killed a year later, in 2010, her death is quite instructive. Soon after Evelyn was murdered (along with her common law husband), the NPA's political wing, the CPP, issued a media release in which it noted Evelyn's death. They accused the AFP, whom they labeled as "fascist," and said that Evelyn's death had been designed to "break" Leonicio Pitao's "spirits." By the end of the month however, the organisation had opted to come clean. The NPA itself then issued a media release in which it admitted that Evelyn had been killed with Pitao's full knowledge (indeed he had ordered it). It even credited the killing to the SMRC's own SPARU Team, the Ka Paking Guimbaolibot Red Partisan Brigade.
It wouldn't take long though for Leonicio Pitao to begin adding other names to what seems to be an ever expanding list of "guilty" AFP personnel. By the time April 1st, 2009 came around, three and a half weeks after Rebelyn's terrible death, Pitao had publicly listed thirteen men, all AFP Intelligence Agents or Assets, the latter simply men just like Danilo Santiago, strongarmed into serving as sources or spies. April 1st was the day that then Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Leila de Lima- currently serving the Aquino Administration as its Secretary of the DOJ, or Department of Justice- hastily convened a three day Hearing on the Rebelyn Pitao Murder.
I will continue with the third and final part of this entry shortly...
Showing posts with label SPARU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SPARU. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Davao Death Squad Through the Eyes of HRW, Part I
On April 6th, 2009, the NGO Human Rights Watch, or HRW, published a scathing (with HRW everything is "scathing") report on my pretty little punching bag and everybody's favourite hypocrite, Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte, then the Mayor of Davao City, now serving as its Vice Mayor as daughter Sarah "Inday" Duterte Carpio plays "Seat Warmer" since big daddy reached his nine year term limit in 2010.
HRW is far from objective and should truth be told (and let us hope it always should) they are far from a factual source. Be that as it may this particular report would be worth posting simply as a political curio except that in having scrutinised it VERY carefully I can safely say that THIS particular report has no serious factual errors although it is chock full of innuendo, inferences in THIS case that I happen to agree with 100%. While Rodrigo Duterte has never been charged in any court of law over the so called "Davao Death Squad," he has no problem saying everything BUT the simple "I did it." He actually is so full of himself that he comes just a hair's breadth from doing just that.
For those readers who may have no idea what the "Davao Death Squad" is, or is supposed to be, it is reputed to be an organised force of people created by Duterte, or else simply condoned by him, that engages in Extra-Judicial Executions in order to rid Davao City of petty criminals and other social undesirables. Believing that this issue is important enough to warrant a verbatim rendering of this report I have taken the time and effort to post it. The original report is comprised of fifteen pages including maps, addendums, and indexes therefore I will be dividing it between two entries, Parts I and II. Page 1 of the report is merely a table of contents and so I will begin on page 2.
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pp2
"You Can Die Anytime"
I) Summary
"If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am the Mayor, you are a legitimate target for assassination."
- Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, February 2009
At around 6PM on July 17, 2008, 20 year-old Jaypee Larosa left his home in Lanang, a quiet residential neighborhood in Davao City, to go to a nearby internet cafe. An hour later his family heard six successive gunshots. A neighbor rushed into their house to say one of their sons had been shot in front of the cafe. Jaypee was taken to a hospital, but was declared dead on arrival.
Eyewitnesses said that Larosa had been shot by three men in dark jackets who had arrived on a motorcycle. After they shot him, one of them removed the baseball cap Larosa was wearing and said, "Son of a bitch. This is not the one," and they immediately left the scene. It appears that the assailants were seeking to kill another man, a suspected robber. Noone has been arrested for Larosa's murder. His family is unaware of the police having taken any meaningful action in this case.
Jaypee Larosa is just one of hundreds of victims of unresolved targeted killings commited over the past decade in Davao City and elsewhere in the Philippines. Dozens of family members have described to Human Rights Watch the murder of their loved ones, all killed in similar fashion. Most victims are alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children, some of which are members of street gangs. Impunity for such crimes is nearly total- few such cases have been seriously investigated by the police, let alone prosecuted.
Although reports of targeted killings in the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao, are not new, the number of victims has seen a steady rise over many years. In Davao City, the number has risen from two in 1998 to ninety-eight in 2003 to one hundred and twenty-four in 2008. In 2009, thirty-three killings were reported in Janurary alone. In recent years the geographical scope of such killings has expanded far beyond Davao City and other cities on the southern island of Mindanai to Cebu City, the Philippines' second largest metropolis. An already serious problem is becoming much worse.
This report provides an anatomy of death squad operations based on our investigations of twenty-eight killings, eighteen of which took place in 2007 and 2008. The victims include children as young as fourteen. In researching this report we found evidence of complicity and at times of direct involvement of government officials and members of the police in killings by the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS). We obtained detailed and consistent information on the DDS from relatives and friends of death squad members with direct knowledge of death squad operations, as well as journalists, community activists, and government officials who provided detailed corroborating evidence.
According to these "insiders," most members of the DDS are either former Communist New People's Army insurgents who surrendered to the Government or young men who themselves were death squad targets themselves who joined the group to avoid being killed. Most can make far more money with the DDS than in other available occupations. Their handlers, called "Amo" (Boss), are usually police officers or ex-police officers. They provide them with training, weapons, and ammunition, motorcycles, and information on the targets. Death squad members often use 45-caliber handguns, a weapon commonly used by the police but normally prohibitively expensive for gang members and criminals.
The insiders told Human Rights Watch that the Amo obtains information about targets from police or barangay officials, who compile lists of targets. The Amo provides members of a death squad team with as little as the name of the targets, and sometimes an address and a photograph. Police stations are then notified to ensure that police officers are slow to respond, enabling the death squad members to escape the crime scene, even when they commit killimgs near a police station.
The consistent failure of the Philippine National Police to seriously investigate apparent targetted killings is striking. Witnesses to the killings told Human Rights Watch that the police routiinly arrive at the scene long after the assailants leave, even if the nearest police station is minutes away. Police often fail to collect obvious evidence such as spent bullet casings, or question witnesses or suspects, but instead pressure the families of victims to identify the killers.
Our research found that the killings follow a pattern. The assailants usually arrive in twos or threes on a motorcycle without a lisence plate. They wear baseball caps and buttoned shirts or jackets, apparently to conceal their weapons underneath. They shoot or, increasingly, stab their victims without warning, often in broad daylight and in the presencw of multiple eyewitnesses, for whom they show little regard. And as quickly as they arrive, they ride off- but almost always before the police appear
The killings probably have not generated the public outrage that would be expected because most of the victims have been young men known in their neighborhood for involvement in small-scale drug dealing or minor crimes such as petty theft and drug use. Other victims have been gang members and street children.
Frequently, the victims had been earlier warned that their names were on a "list" of people to be killed unless they stopped engaging in criminal activities. The warnings were delivered by barangay officials, police officers, and sometimes even city government officials. In other cases the victims were killed immediately after their release from police custody or prison, or shortly after they returned from hiding.
Human Rights Watch investigated a number of cases in which those killed were seemingly unintended targets- victins of mistaken identity, unfortunate bystanders, and relatives and friends of the apparent target. Death squad members have also been victims of death squad killings, possibly because they "knew too much," failed to perform their tasks, or became too exposed. Some Davao City residents also expressed the belief that some death squad members have become guns- for- hire.
Witnesses and family members who provide information to police on the killings, including the names of suspects, say that police either fail to follow up on the leads, whether they have started a criminal investigation, or if they have made any progress in their investigation. In many cases witnesses are too afraid to come forward with information, as they believe they could become death squad targets by doing so.
The words and actions of long-time Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, some of which were quoted at the start of this report, indicate his support for targeted killings of criminal suspects. Over the years, he has made numerous statements attempting to justify the killing of suspected criminals. In 2001-2002, Duterte would announce the names of "criminals" on local television and radio- and some of those he named would later become victims of death squad killings.
Duterte claims that Davao City has achieved peace under his rule. But with killers roaming the streets with the comfort of state-protected impunity, the city remains a very unsafe place. Available information points to an increasing number of death squad killings, including of persons such as Jaypee Larosa who appeared to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Duterte and other local officials continue to deny the existence of any death squad. But in recent years, mayors and other local officials of other cities have made statements attempting to justify similar killings in their own cities. Sadky, Davao City is seen by some as a model for fighting crime.
Just as disappointing, there is almost a complete lack of political will by the Government at both local and national levels to address targeted killings and take action against the perpetrators. Based on consistent, detailed, and compelling accounts from families and friends of victims, eyewitnesses of targetted killings, barangay officials, journalists, community activists, and "insiders," Human Rights Watch has concluded that a death squad and lists of people targeted for killings exist in Davao City. We also conclude that at least some police officers and barangay officials are either involved or are complicit in death squad killings. Human Rights Watch believes that such killings continue and the perpetrators enjoy impunity largely because of the tolerance of, and in some cases, outright support from local authorities.
The failure to dismantle the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups, prosecute those responsible, and bring justice to the families of victims lies not only with local authorities. The administration of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has largely turned a blind eye to the killing spree in Davao City and elsewhere, The Philippine National Police have not sought to confront the problem and the inaction of the national institutions responsible for accountability, namely the Department of Justice, the Ombudsman's Office, and the Commission on Humam Rights, has fueled widespread impunity.
The continued death squad operation reflects an official mindset in which the ends are seen as justifying the means. The motive appears to be simple expedience: courts are viewed as slow or inept. The murder of criminal suspects is seen as easier and faster than proper law enforcement. Official tolerance and support of targeted killing of suspected criminals promotes rather than curbs the culture of violence that has long plagued Davao City and other places where such killings occur.
Until national authorities take decisive action to disband the Davao Death Squad and all other similar groups that may be operating in other citues, and prosecute perpetrators and complicit officials, the pledges of President Arroyo and other Government officials to respect basic human rights and uphold the rule of law will remain hollow.
Key Recommendations:
The Philippine Government and local authorities in Davao City, General Santos City, Digos City, and Tagum City, as well as other cities believed to be using or tolerating death squads should urgently take measures to stop the killings and hold perpetrators accountable. More specifically, Human Rights Watch urges that:
• President Arroyo should publicly denounce Extra-Judicial Killings and local anti-crime campaigns that promote or encourage the unlawful use of force. She should order the Philippine National Police, the Ombudsman's Office, and the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate the targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children, and pledge that state employees who are found to be involved or complicit in such killings will be prosecuted in accordance with the law.
• The Philippine National Police should connect through investigations into targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City, General Santos City, Digos City, and Tagum City and investigate the alleged involvement and complicity of police officers in such killings, including their failure to investigate the killings rigorously and prepare cases for prosecution.
• The Commission on Human Rights should investigate and report publicly and promptly on the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups and the involvement of the PNP and City Governments in Davao City and other cities where death squad activity has been reported.
• As part of its inquiry into the targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children, the Commission on Human Rights should investigate whether Rodrigo Duterte, Mayor of Davao City, and other mayors and governors in the Philippines ave been involved or complicit in death squad killings, or whether statements by Government Officials may have incited violence.
• The Mayor of Davao City and other local oficials should cease all support, verbal or otherwise, for anti crime campaign that entail violation of the law, including targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children. They should arrest and prosecute perpetrators of the killings and state employees, including law enforcement officers, who are found to be involved or complicit in death squad operations.
• The Philippine Congress should conduct hearings on the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups in the Philippines, with special attention paid as to whether local officials and police officers are involved or complicit in such killings.
• The United States, European Union, Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank should keep their pledges on Human Rights, the rule of law, and good governance, press the Philippine Government to initiate investigations into alleged targeted killings in cities, and to publicize the results of its investigation and plans to dismantle the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups.
pp3
II. Note on Methodology
In July, 2008 Human Rights Watch investigated 28 killings in Davao City, General Santos City, and Digos City, focusing on cases where circumstances suggested a death squad might have been involved. Most of the killings we investigated occurred in 2007 and 2008, although a small handful had taken place as long ago as 2001. Human Rights Watch interviewed about 40 family members and friends of victims, as well as eyewitnesses of apparent targeted killings.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed nine people who had inside knowledge of the structure and functioning of the "Davao Death Squad," because they had family, friends, or neighbors who were members of the DDS, had talked directly to DDS members, or had dealings with them. We also spoke with local Human Rights activists, laywers, and journalists, who have been looking into the killings for years and who, in many cases, were able to provide detailed, corroborating evidence.
We conducted interviews in English and Cebuano (the predominant local language) with the aid of interpreters. We have witheld the names of many of the people we interviewed for security reasons, using pseudonyms for those we repeatedly quoted (we note suce use in the relevant notations). Wherever possible and in the majority of cases, interviews were conducted on a one-on-one basis.
In September, 2008, Human Rights Watch sent letters to the Philippine officials listed below to obtain data and solicit views on the killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City, General Santos City, Digos City, Tagum City, and Cebu City. We sent follow-up letters a month later to those who did not reply.
Human Rights Watch wrote the following officials:
Rodrigo R.Duterte, Mayor, Davao City
Pedro B.Acharon, Mayor, General Santos City
Arsenio Latasa, Mayor, Digos City
Rey Uy, Mayor, Tagum City
Tomas R.Osmena, Mayor, Cebu City
Rodolfo R.Rosario, Governor, Province of Davao del Norte
Douglas R.Cagas, Governor, Province of Davao del Sur
Andres G.Caro II, Regional Director, PNP Regional Office XI
Ramon C.Apolonario, City Director, PNP, Davao City
Alberto P.Sipaco Jr., Regional Director, Commission on Human Rights, Davao City
Humphrey Monteroso, Deputy Ombudsman for Mindanao
Antonio B.Arellano, Regional State Prosecutor, Region XI
Raul D.Bendigo, State Prosecutor, Davao City
At this writing in February, 2009, Raul D.Bendigo, Davao City Prosecutor, Tomas R.Osmena, Mayor of Cebu City, and Pedro B.Acharon Jr., Mayor of General Santos City, had responded. The other officials listed above did not respond or asked Human Rights Watch to contact other Government agencies or officials. Some of Human Rights Watch letters and Philippine officials' responses are attached in this report's appendix. The rest of the letters are posted on the Philippine oage of the Human Rights Watch website:
www.hrs.org
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[ III. Map of Mindanao]
pp5
IV. Background
Legacy of Violence
Mindanao, the largest of the Philippine's southern islands, has been a focal point for insurgencies and conflict for decades. Militant Muslim groups, Communist insurgents, Government-backed militias and "vigilante groups" have all been responsible for numerous human rights abuses- including abductions, torture and killings- against suspected adversaries and ordinary civilians.
Since 1969 the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been fighting to topple the Philippine Government. The Communist insurgency reached its greatest strength in the mid-1980s, prior to the "People Power" revolution of 1986 that removed then-President Ferdinand Marcos from power. During that period, Mindanao was one of the hotbeds of the NPA insurgency. NPA forces have been responsible for numerous abuses, including targeted killings of persons whom they identify as "enemies," and the use of violencw to extort businesses and individuals. So called "Sparrow Units" have summarily executed those cited for "crimes against people," such as criminals, military informants, and abusive police officers.
Since the early 1970s, the Philippine Government has also been engaged in an intermittent armed conflict with Muslim separatist groups in Mindanao. The conflict has resulted in the death of an estimated 120,000 people, mostly civilians, and displacement of some two million more. A shaky peace currently exists. More radical groups such as the Abu Sayyaf Group emerged in the 1990s and have been responsible for numerous bombings and other attacks on civilians, primarily in Mindanao and other southern islands.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have for many years been implicated in insurgency-related Human Rights violations. In a June 2007 report, "Scared Silent: Impunity for Extra-Judicual Killings in the Philippines," Human Rights Watch documented the involvement of Government security forces in the Extra-Judicial Killing of Leftist politicians, and activists, journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, and agricultural reform activists. Only a handful of the perpetrators have ever been convicted.
To fight the NPA insurgents, the Government has long relied on the use of poorly trained paramilitary forces such as the Civilian Home Defense Force and its successor, the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU). These armed militias have tortured and murdered people they believed support or sympathize with the NPA. By operating outside the military chain of commandzn they have also given the armed forces a level of "deniability" for serious abuses they commit.
The Government has also actively enlisted so-called vigilante groups to fight the NPA. By popular legend, the birth, the birth of modern vigilantism in the Philippines traces back to Davao City. In April 1987, in a slum in Davao City, three former rebels shot to death a notorious NPA assasin. This group, called Alsa Masa ("Masses Arise") propspered thanks to deep public resentment against the NPA, which had killed numerous people, many in error, in a violent internal purge starting in late 1985 and alienated once supportive populations.
With the endorsement of then-President Corazon Aquino and under the patronage of a local military commander, Lieutenant Colonel Franco Calida, Alsa Masa rapidly expanded, using coercive recruiting methods and extortion. They required each household to provide a member for their nightly patrols, and painted homes of those who didn't comply with an "X." Jun Pala, a radio broadcaster who was an early supporter of Alsa Masa, routinely threatened Alsa Masa critics with retribution.
In many areas throughout the Philippines, local military commanders created and provided arms to vigilante groups, hoping to emulate Davao City's counterinsurgency experiment with Alsa Masa. A wide variety of vigilante groups were reported in the provinces of North Cotabato, Misamis Occidental, and Zamboanga del Sur in Mindanao and on the islands of Negros, Cebu, and Leyte, among other areas. When these groups invariably became involved in serious abuses, enthusiasm steadily waned and they disappeared in the 1990s.
Problem of Illicit Drugs
The Philippine Government has been battling drug syndicates for decades. The country has the highest estimated methamphetamine prevalence in the world, and continues to be a producer, consumer, and transhipment point for methamphetamine. Illict drug laboratories, which used to be found in or near Metropolitan Manila, are now found in various parts of the country, including Mindanao. In one such discovery, the authorities found a laboratory in Zamboanga City in Mindanao in February 2008 that reportedly had the capacity to produce 1,000 kilograms of methamphetamine each month.
In 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, the authorities identified 149 local drug groups and 8 trans-national groups operating in the country, up sharply from the 149 local and 7 trans-national groups identified in 2006. There was no reason given for the surge. They also cited "intelligence reports" as indicating that illegal drugs from foreign countries were entering through coastal areas in central and southern Philippines. At the same time, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency reported a decreasing number of patients treated at various drug-rehabilitation facilities, again without offering explanation or analysis.
A 2007 US State Department report concluded that "corruption, low morale, inadequate resources and salaries, and lack of co-operation between police and prosecutors" were hampering drug prosecution in the Philippines. It noted that the slow process of prosecuting cases demoralizes law enforcement personnel and permits drug dealers to continue their drug business while awaiting court dates. It said the leading cause for dismissal of cases os the non-appearance of prosecution witnesses, including police officers. Davao City, an urban center of Mindanao, is a major market for illicit drugs.
Davao City
In the 1970s and 1980s Davao City was known as the "murder capital" of the Philippines. Communist insurgents and Government security forces killed each other in the daytime on Davao City streets. NPA assasins killed corrupt police officers, suspected informants, and drug dealers. The Agdao district if Davao City became a Communist bastion knowm as "Nicaragdao" (after Sandinista- led Nicaragua), where the NPA routinely commited targeted killings.
The NPA was largely driven out of Davao City by the late-1980s. The Government claimed that Alsa Masa and other vigilante groups were chiefly responsible, but the NPA's demise also has been explained as due to a bloody internal purge in the NPA that left its ranks shattered. The NPA's decline in Davao City was repeated throughout the Philippines in the ensuing decade. In the words of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the NPA today remains a low-level threat.
In recent years. Davao City has developed into a sprawling urban metropolis of 1.44 million residents, and a business, investment, and tourism hub for the Southern Philippines. It has attracted a large number of economic migrants from all over Mindanao and elsewhere in the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands are unable ti find stable jobs and end in crowded slum areas. They include an estimated 3,000 street children- 40 to 50 percent of whom are girls- who roam the streets of Davao City to make money and avoid physical abuse at home. Many join youth gangs for bonding and survival.
A resurgency of violence by Islamist groups in Mindanao has left its mark on Davao City. On March 4, 2003, a bomb exploded in a waiting shelter just outside Davao International Airport, killing 22 people and injuring 143 others. Within days, an Abu Sayyaf Group commander claimed responsibility for the attack. On April 2, 2003, a bomb hit the Davao Sasa Wharf, the main dock for Davao City, killing 17 and injuring 56. Several alleged members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf Group were soon arrested.
Southern Mindanao, which includes Davao City, has also seen a resurgence in Extra-Judicial Killings by members of the armed forces and the police against leftist activists, journalists, and others deemed to be NPA supporters, part of a larger nationwide increase in such killings. As elsewhere in the Philippines, impunity for such crimes is the norm: rarely do the authorities prosecute members of the militart or police for Extra-Judical Killings, and few cases result in arrests, even fewer in convictions.
Davao's Mayor Rodrigo Duterte
Rodrigo Duterte was first elected Mayor in 1988 on a campaign to reinstate peace and order in Davao City. Before running for office, Duterte had built his reputation as a City Prosecutor by targeting military and rebel abuses with equal fervor. The son of a former provincial governor, Duterte said his father taught him that elected officials must serve the greater good no matter what it takes, like a father protecting and disciplining his family. Duterte's rise as a prominent political figure coincided with a significant change in the dynamic between local officials and police in the Philippines. As discussed in Chapter X, two laws enacted in 1990-91 provided city mayors and provincial governors greater operational control over their police forces. Under Duterte's rule, crime rates in the city dropped to among the lowest in the country. According to the Davao City official website:
"From a 3-digit crime rate per 10,000 people in 1985, Davao has reached an almost Utopian [sic] environment with a monthly crime volume of 0.8 cases per 10,000 persons from 1999 up to 2005. Digging through the records, it would reveal that about 90 percent of the cases reported are petty crimes that do not in any way threaten the over-all peace and order condition of the city."
These descriptions attempt to conceal a rampant crime wave-namely, the murder of hundreds of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children. More importantly, by averaging out years of statistics and omitting most recent years, they belie the city's sharp upward trend in crime rates over the last decade. According to statistics from the police, between 1999 and 2008, the population in Davao City grew from 1.2 million to 1.44 million, or by 29 percent. Meanwhile, the number of annual crime incidents during this period rose from 975 to 3,391, or by 248 percent. These numbers show that, contrary to the city government's self-proclaimed success, its tough anti-crime campaign has failed to curve crime rates. An increasing number of death squad killings appears to have contributed to worsening crime rates in the city.
Social activists say death squad killings if alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City started sometime in the mid-1990s, during Duterte's second term as Mayor. The group that claimed to be responsible for the killings was called "Suluguon sa Katawhan" or "Servants of the People," among other names, but soon the media in Davao City began referring to it as the "Davao Death Squad" (DDS).
By mid-1977, local media already had attributed more than 60 unsolved murders to the group, observing that the death squad had adopted to urban warfare tactics used in the 1980s by the NPA "Sparrow Squad" hit teams. One source said revealed that the death squad then had at least ten members, mostly former NPA who had surrendered to the Government. The death squad grew dramatically since-one insider estimates the number of current members at about 500 (see Chapter VIII).
These Killings have not been unpopular. According to a local Human Rights organisation, fear and public frustration at "the arduous and ineffective justice system" have made summary executions seem a "practical resort" to suppress crime in Davao City.
Duterte, who has been mayor for two decades, with a short interval as a Congressman, has been given endearing nicknames by the media like "The Punisher," "The Enforcer," and "Dirty Harry" for his anti-crime campaign. His policies have garnered public support in Davao City. It is thus perhaps no suprise that iin recent years, reports of targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children have emerged in the nearby cities of General Santos City, Digos City, and Tagum City in Mindanao as well as Cebu City on the central island of Cebu.
To be concluded in "Part II"
HRW is far from objective and should truth be told (and let us hope it always should) they are far from a factual source. Be that as it may this particular report would be worth posting simply as a political curio except that in having scrutinised it VERY carefully I can safely say that THIS particular report has no serious factual errors although it is chock full of innuendo, inferences in THIS case that I happen to agree with 100%. While Rodrigo Duterte has never been charged in any court of law over the so called "Davao Death Squad," he has no problem saying everything BUT the simple "I did it." He actually is so full of himself that he comes just a hair's breadth from doing just that.
For those readers who may have no idea what the "Davao Death Squad" is, or is supposed to be, it is reputed to be an organised force of people created by Duterte, or else simply condoned by him, that engages in Extra-Judicial Executions in order to rid Davao City of petty criminals and other social undesirables. Believing that this issue is important enough to warrant a verbatim rendering of this report I have taken the time and effort to post it. The original report is comprised of fifteen pages including maps, addendums, and indexes therefore I will be dividing it between two entries, Parts I and II. Page 1 of the report is merely a table of contents and so I will begin on page 2.
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"You Can Die Anytime"
I) Summary
"If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am the Mayor, you are a legitimate target for assassination."
- Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, February 2009
At around 6PM on July 17, 2008, 20 year-old Jaypee Larosa left his home in Lanang, a quiet residential neighborhood in Davao City, to go to a nearby internet cafe. An hour later his family heard six successive gunshots. A neighbor rushed into their house to say one of their sons had been shot in front of the cafe. Jaypee was taken to a hospital, but was declared dead on arrival.
Eyewitnesses said that Larosa had been shot by three men in dark jackets who had arrived on a motorcycle. After they shot him, one of them removed the baseball cap Larosa was wearing and said, "Son of a bitch. This is not the one," and they immediately left the scene. It appears that the assailants were seeking to kill another man, a suspected robber. Noone has been arrested for Larosa's murder. His family is unaware of the police having taken any meaningful action in this case.
Jaypee Larosa is just one of hundreds of victims of unresolved targeted killings commited over the past decade in Davao City and elsewhere in the Philippines. Dozens of family members have described to Human Rights Watch the murder of their loved ones, all killed in similar fashion. Most victims are alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children, some of which are members of street gangs. Impunity for such crimes is nearly total- few such cases have been seriously investigated by the police, let alone prosecuted.
Although reports of targeted killings in the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao, are not new, the number of victims has seen a steady rise over many years. In Davao City, the number has risen from two in 1998 to ninety-eight in 2003 to one hundred and twenty-four in 2008. In 2009, thirty-three killings were reported in Janurary alone. In recent years the geographical scope of such killings has expanded far beyond Davao City and other cities on the southern island of Mindanai to Cebu City, the Philippines' second largest metropolis. An already serious problem is becoming much worse.
This report provides an anatomy of death squad operations based on our investigations of twenty-eight killings, eighteen of which took place in 2007 and 2008. The victims include children as young as fourteen. In researching this report we found evidence of complicity and at times of direct involvement of government officials and members of the police in killings by the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS). We obtained detailed and consistent information on the DDS from relatives and friends of death squad members with direct knowledge of death squad operations, as well as journalists, community activists, and government officials who provided detailed corroborating evidence.
According to these "insiders," most members of the DDS are either former Communist New People's Army insurgents who surrendered to the Government or young men who themselves were death squad targets themselves who joined the group to avoid being killed. Most can make far more money with the DDS than in other available occupations. Their handlers, called "Amo" (Boss), are usually police officers or ex-police officers. They provide them with training, weapons, and ammunition, motorcycles, and information on the targets. Death squad members often use 45-caliber handguns, a weapon commonly used by the police but normally prohibitively expensive for gang members and criminals.
The insiders told Human Rights Watch that the Amo obtains information about targets from police or barangay officials, who compile lists of targets. The Amo provides members of a death squad team with as little as the name of the targets, and sometimes an address and a photograph. Police stations are then notified to ensure that police officers are slow to respond, enabling the death squad members to escape the crime scene, even when they commit killimgs near a police station.
The consistent failure of the Philippine National Police to seriously investigate apparent targetted killings is striking. Witnesses to the killings told Human Rights Watch that the police routiinly arrive at the scene long after the assailants leave, even if the nearest police station is minutes away. Police often fail to collect obvious evidence such as spent bullet casings, or question witnesses or suspects, but instead pressure the families of victims to identify the killers.
Our research found that the killings follow a pattern. The assailants usually arrive in twos or threes on a motorcycle without a lisence plate. They wear baseball caps and buttoned shirts or jackets, apparently to conceal their weapons underneath. They shoot or, increasingly, stab their victims without warning, often in broad daylight and in the presencw of multiple eyewitnesses, for whom they show little regard. And as quickly as they arrive, they ride off- but almost always before the police appear
The killings probably have not generated the public outrage that would be expected because most of the victims have been young men known in their neighborhood for involvement in small-scale drug dealing or minor crimes such as petty theft and drug use. Other victims have been gang members and street children.
Frequently, the victims had been earlier warned that their names were on a "list" of people to be killed unless they stopped engaging in criminal activities. The warnings were delivered by barangay officials, police officers, and sometimes even city government officials. In other cases the victims were killed immediately after their release from police custody or prison, or shortly after they returned from hiding.
Human Rights Watch investigated a number of cases in which those killed were seemingly unintended targets- victins of mistaken identity, unfortunate bystanders, and relatives and friends of the apparent target. Death squad members have also been victims of death squad killings, possibly because they "knew too much," failed to perform their tasks, or became too exposed. Some Davao City residents also expressed the belief that some death squad members have become guns- for- hire.
Witnesses and family members who provide information to police on the killings, including the names of suspects, say that police either fail to follow up on the leads, whether they have started a criminal investigation, or if they have made any progress in their investigation. In many cases witnesses are too afraid to come forward with information, as they believe they could become death squad targets by doing so.
The words and actions of long-time Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, some of which were quoted at the start of this report, indicate his support for targeted killings of criminal suspects. Over the years, he has made numerous statements attempting to justify the killing of suspected criminals. In 2001-2002, Duterte would announce the names of "criminals" on local television and radio- and some of those he named would later become victims of death squad killings.
Duterte claims that Davao City has achieved peace under his rule. But with killers roaming the streets with the comfort of state-protected impunity, the city remains a very unsafe place. Available information points to an increasing number of death squad killings, including of persons such as Jaypee Larosa who appeared to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Duterte and other local officials continue to deny the existence of any death squad. But in recent years, mayors and other local officials of other cities have made statements attempting to justify similar killings in their own cities. Sadky, Davao City is seen by some as a model for fighting crime.
Just as disappointing, there is almost a complete lack of political will by the Government at both local and national levels to address targeted killings and take action against the perpetrators. Based on consistent, detailed, and compelling accounts from families and friends of victims, eyewitnesses of targetted killings, barangay officials, journalists, community activists, and "insiders," Human Rights Watch has concluded that a death squad and lists of people targeted for killings exist in Davao City. We also conclude that at least some police officers and barangay officials are either involved or are complicit in death squad killings. Human Rights Watch believes that such killings continue and the perpetrators enjoy impunity largely because of the tolerance of, and in some cases, outright support from local authorities.
The failure to dismantle the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups, prosecute those responsible, and bring justice to the families of victims lies not only with local authorities. The administration of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has largely turned a blind eye to the killing spree in Davao City and elsewhere, The Philippine National Police have not sought to confront the problem and the inaction of the national institutions responsible for accountability, namely the Department of Justice, the Ombudsman's Office, and the Commission on Humam Rights, has fueled widespread impunity.
The continued death squad operation reflects an official mindset in which the ends are seen as justifying the means. The motive appears to be simple expedience: courts are viewed as slow or inept. The murder of criminal suspects is seen as easier and faster than proper law enforcement. Official tolerance and support of targeted killing of suspected criminals promotes rather than curbs the culture of violence that has long plagued Davao City and other places where such killings occur.
Until national authorities take decisive action to disband the Davao Death Squad and all other similar groups that may be operating in other citues, and prosecute perpetrators and complicit officials, the pledges of President Arroyo and other Government officials to respect basic human rights and uphold the rule of law will remain hollow.
Key Recommendations:
The Philippine Government and local authorities in Davao City, General Santos City, Digos City, and Tagum City, as well as other cities believed to be using or tolerating death squads should urgently take measures to stop the killings and hold perpetrators accountable. More specifically, Human Rights Watch urges that:
• President Arroyo should publicly denounce Extra-Judicial Killings and local anti-crime campaigns that promote or encourage the unlawful use of force. She should order the Philippine National Police, the Ombudsman's Office, and the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate the targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children, and pledge that state employees who are found to be involved or complicit in such killings will be prosecuted in accordance with the law.
• The Philippine National Police should connect through investigations into targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City, General Santos City, Digos City, and Tagum City and investigate the alleged involvement and complicity of police officers in such killings, including their failure to investigate the killings rigorously and prepare cases for prosecution.
• The Commission on Human Rights should investigate and report publicly and promptly on the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups and the involvement of the PNP and City Governments in Davao City and other cities where death squad activity has been reported.
• As part of its inquiry into the targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children, the Commission on Human Rights should investigate whether Rodrigo Duterte, Mayor of Davao City, and other mayors and governors in the Philippines ave been involved or complicit in death squad killings, or whether statements by Government Officials may have incited violence.
• The Mayor of Davao City and other local oficials should cease all support, verbal or otherwise, for anti crime campaign that entail violation of the law, including targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children. They should arrest and prosecute perpetrators of the killings and state employees, including law enforcement officers, who are found to be involved or complicit in death squad operations.
• The Philippine Congress should conduct hearings on the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups in the Philippines, with special attention paid as to whether local officials and police officers are involved or complicit in such killings.
• The United States, European Union, Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank should keep their pledges on Human Rights, the rule of law, and good governance, press the Philippine Government to initiate investigations into alleged targeted killings in cities, and to publicize the results of its investigation and plans to dismantle the Davao Death Squad and other similar groups.
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II. Note on Methodology
In July, 2008 Human Rights Watch investigated 28 killings in Davao City, General Santos City, and Digos City, focusing on cases where circumstances suggested a death squad might have been involved. Most of the killings we investigated occurred in 2007 and 2008, although a small handful had taken place as long ago as 2001. Human Rights Watch interviewed about 40 family members and friends of victims, as well as eyewitnesses of apparent targeted killings.
Human Rights Watch also interviewed nine people who had inside knowledge of the structure and functioning of the "Davao Death Squad," because they had family, friends, or neighbors who were members of the DDS, had talked directly to DDS members, or had dealings with them. We also spoke with local Human Rights activists, laywers, and journalists, who have been looking into the killings for years and who, in many cases, were able to provide detailed, corroborating evidence.
We conducted interviews in English and Cebuano (the predominant local language) with the aid of interpreters. We have witheld the names of many of the people we interviewed for security reasons, using pseudonyms for those we repeatedly quoted (we note suce use in the relevant notations). Wherever possible and in the majority of cases, interviews were conducted on a one-on-one basis.
In September, 2008, Human Rights Watch sent letters to the Philippine officials listed below to obtain data and solicit views on the killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City, General Santos City, Digos City, Tagum City, and Cebu City. We sent follow-up letters a month later to those who did not reply.
Human Rights Watch wrote the following officials:
Rodrigo R.Duterte, Mayor, Davao City
Pedro B.Acharon, Mayor, General Santos City
Arsenio Latasa, Mayor, Digos City
Rey Uy, Mayor, Tagum City
Tomas R.Osmena, Mayor, Cebu City
Rodolfo R.Rosario, Governor, Province of Davao del Norte
Douglas R.Cagas, Governor, Province of Davao del Sur
Andres G.Caro II, Regional Director, PNP Regional Office XI
Ramon C.Apolonario, City Director, PNP, Davao City
Alberto P.Sipaco Jr., Regional Director, Commission on Human Rights, Davao City
Humphrey Monteroso, Deputy Ombudsman for Mindanao
Antonio B.Arellano, Regional State Prosecutor, Region XI
Raul D.Bendigo, State Prosecutor, Davao City
At this writing in February, 2009, Raul D.Bendigo, Davao City Prosecutor, Tomas R.Osmena, Mayor of Cebu City, and Pedro B.Acharon Jr., Mayor of General Santos City, had responded. The other officials listed above did not respond or asked Human Rights Watch to contact other Government agencies or officials. Some of Human Rights Watch letters and Philippine officials' responses are attached in this report's appendix. The rest of the letters are posted on the Philippine oage of the Human Rights Watch website:
www.hrs.org
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[ III. Map of Mindanao]
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IV. Background
Legacy of Violence
Mindanao, the largest of the Philippine's southern islands, has been a focal point for insurgencies and conflict for decades. Militant Muslim groups, Communist insurgents, Government-backed militias and "vigilante groups" have all been responsible for numerous human rights abuses- including abductions, torture and killings- against suspected adversaries and ordinary civilians.
Since 1969 the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been fighting to topple the Philippine Government. The Communist insurgency reached its greatest strength in the mid-1980s, prior to the "People Power" revolution of 1986 that removed then-President Ferdinand Marcos from power. During that period, Mindanao was one of the hotbeds of the NPA insurgency. NPA forces have been responsible for numerous abuses, including targeted killings of persons whom they identify as "enemies," and the use of violencw to extort businesses and individuals. So called "Sparrow Units" have summarily executed those cited for "crimes against people," such as criminals, military informants, and abusive police officers.
Since the early 1970s, the Philippine Government has also been engaged in an intermittent armed conflict with Muslim separatist groups in Mindanao. The conflict has resulted in the death of an estimated 120,000 people, mostly civilians, and displacement of some two million more. A shaky peace currently exists. More radical groups such as the Abu Sayyaf Group emerged in the 1990s and have been responsible for numerous bombings and other attacks on civilians, primarily in Mindanao and other southern islands.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have for many years been implicated in insurgency-related Human Rights violations. In a June 2007 report, "Scared Silent: Impunity for Extra-Judicual Killings in the Philippines," Human Rights Watch documented the involvement of Government security forces in the Extra-Judicial Killing of Leftist politicians, and activists, journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, and agricultural reform activists. Only a handful of the perpetrators have ever been convicted.
To fight the NPA insurgents, the Government has long relied on the use of poorly trained paramilitary forces such as the Civilian Home Defense Force and its successor, the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU). These armed militias have tortured and murdered people they believed support or sympathize with the NPA. By operating outside the military chain of commandzn they have also given the armed forces a level of "deniability" for serious abuses they commit.
The Government has also actively enlisted so-called vigilante groups to fight the NPA. By popular legend, the birth, the birth of modern vigilantism in the Philippines traces back to Davao City. In April 1987, in a slum in Davao City, three former rebels shot to death a notorious NPA assasin. This group, called Alsa Masa ("Masses Arise") propspered thanks to deep public resentment against the NPA, which had killed numerous people, many in error, in a violent internal purge starting in late 1985 and alienated once supportive populations.
With the endorsement of then-President Corazon Aquino and under the patronage of a local military commander, Lieutenant Colonel Franco Calida, Alsa Masa rapidly expanded, using coercive recruiting methods and extortion. They required each household to provide a member for their nightly patrols, and painted homes of those who didn't comply with an "X." Jun Pala, a radio broadcaster who was an early supporter of Alsa Masa, routinely threatened Alsa Masa critics with retribution.
In many areas throughout the Philippines, local military commanders created and provided arms to vigilante groups, hoping to emulate Davao City's counterinsurgency experiment with Alsa Masa. A wide variety of vigilante groups were reported in the provinces of North Cotabato, Misamis Occidental, and Zamboanga del Sur in Mindanao and on the islands of Negros, Cebu, and Leyte, among other areas. When these groups invariably became involved in serious abuses, enthusiasm steadily waned and they disappeared in the 1990s.
Problem of Illicit Drugs
The Philippine Government has been battling drug syndicates for decades. The country has the highest estimated methamphetamine prevalence in the world, and continues to be a producer, consumer, and transhipment point for methamphetamine. Illict drug laboratories, which used to be found in or near Metropolitan Manila, are now found in various parts of the country, including Mindanao. In one such discovery, the authorities found a laboratory in Zamboanga City in Mindanao in February 2008 that reportedly had the capacity to produce 1,000 kilograms of methamphetamine each month.
In 2007, the last year for which statistics are available, the authorities identified 149 local drug groups and 8 trans-national groups operating in the country, up sharply from the 149 local and 7 trans-national groups identified in 2006. There was no reason given for the surge. They also cited "intelligence reports" as indicating that illegal drugs from foreign countries were entering through coastal areas in central and southern Philippines. At the same time, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency reported a decreasing number of patients treated at various drug-rehabilitation facilities, again without offering explanation or analysis.
A 2007 US State Department report concluded that "corruption, low morale, inadequate resources and salaries, and lack of co-operation between police and prosecutors" were hampering drug prosecution in the Philippines. It noted that the slow process of prosecuting cases demoralizes law enforcement personnel and permits drug dealers to continue their drug business while awaiting court dates. It said the leading cause for dismissal of cases os the non-appearance of prosecution witnesses, including police officers. Davao City, an urban center of Mindanao, is a major market for illicit drugs.
Davao City
In the 1970s and 1980s Davao City was known as the "murder capital" of the Philippines. Communist insurgents and Government security forces killed each other in the daytime on Davao City streets. NPA assasins killed corrupt police officers, suspected informants, and drug dealers. The Agdao district if Davao City became a Communist bastion knowm as "Nicaragdao" (after Sandinista- led Nicaragua), where the NPA routinely commited targeted killings.
The NPA was largely driven out of Davao City by the late-1980s. The Government claimed that Alsa Masa and other vigilante groups were chiefly responsible, but the NPA's demise also has been explained as due to a bloody internal purge in the NPA that left its ranks shattered. The NPA's decline in Davao City was repeated throughout the Philippines in the ensuing decade. In the words of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the NPA today remains a low-level threat.
In recent years. Davao City has developed into a sprawling urban metropolis of 1.44 million residents, and a business, investment, and tourism hub for the Southern Philippines. It has attracted a large number of economic migrants from all over Mindanao and elsewhere in the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands are unable ti find stable jobs and end in crowded slum areas. They include an estimated 3,000 street children- 40 to 50 percent of whom are girls- who roam the streets of Davao City to make money and avoid physical abuse at home. Many join youth gangs for bonding and survival.
A resurgency of violence by Islamist groups in Mindanao has left its mark on Davao City. On March 4, 2003, a bomb exploded in a waiting shelter just outside Davao International Airport, killing 22 people and injuring 143 others. Within days, an Abu Sayyaf Group commander claimed responsibility for the attack. On April 2, 2003, a bomb hit the Davao Sasa Wharf, the main dock for Davao City, killing 17 and injuring 56. Several alleged members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Abu Sayyaf Group were soon arrested.
Southern Mindanao, which includes Davao City, has also seen a resurgence in Extra-Judicial Killings by members of the armed forces and the police against leftist activists, journalists, and others deemed to be NPA supporters, part of a larger nationwide increase in such killings. As elsewhere in the Philippines, impunity for such crimes is the norm: rarely do the authorities prosecute members of the militart or police for Extra-Judical Killings, and few cases result in arrests, even fewer in convictions.
Davao's Mayor Rodrigo Duterte
Rodrigo Duterte was first elected Mayor in 1988 on a campaign to reinstate peace and order in Davao City. Before running for office, Duterte had built his reputation as a City Prosecutor by targeting military and rebel abuses with equal fervor. The son of a former provincial governor, Duterte said his father taught him that elected officials must serve the greater good no matter what it takes, like a father protecting and disciplining his family. Duterte's rise as a prominent political figure coincided with a significant change in the dynamic between local officials and police in the Philippines. As discussed in Chapter X, two laws enacted in 1990-91 provided city mayors and provincial governors greater operational control over their police forces. Under Duterte's rule, crime rates in the city dropped to among the lowest in the country. According to the Davao City official website:
"From a 3-digit crime rate per 10,000 people in 1985, Davao has reached an almost Utopian [sic] environment with a monthly crime volume of 0.8 cases per 10,000 persons from 1999 up to 2005. Digging through the records, it would reveal that about 90 percent of the cases reported are petty crimes that do not in any way threaten the over-all peace and order condition of the city."
These descriptions attempt to conceal a rampant crime wave-namely, the murder of hundreds of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children. More importantly, by averaging out years of statistics and omitting most recent years, they belie the city's sharp upward trend in crime rates over the last decade. According to statistics from the police, between 1999 and 2008, the population in Davao City grew from 1.2 million to 1.44 million, or by 29 percent. Meanwhile, the number of annual crime incidents during this period rose from 975 to 3,391, or by 248 percent. These numbers show that, contrary to the city government's self-proclaimed success, its tough anti-crime campaign has failed to curve crime rates. An increasing number of death squad killings appears to have contributed to worsening crime rates in the city.
Social activists say death squad killings if alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City started sometime in the mid-1990s, during Duterte's second term as Mayor. The group that claimed to be responsible for the killings was called "Suluguon sa Katawhan" or "Servants of the People," among other names, but soon the media in Davao City began referring to it as the "Davao Death Squad" (DDS).
By mid-1977, local media already had attributed more than 60 unsolved murders to the group, observing that the death squad had adopted to urban warfare tactics used in the 1980s by the NPA "Sparrow Squad" hit teams. One source said revealed that the death squad then had at least ten members, mostly former NPA who had surrendered to the Government. The death squad grew dramatically since-one insider estimates the number of current members at about 500 (see Chapter VIII).
These Killings have not been unpopular. According to a local Human Rights organisation, fear and public frustration at "the arduous and ineffective justice system" have made summary executions seem a "practical resort" to suppress crime in Davao City.
Duterte, who has been mayor for two decades, with a short interval as a Congressman, has been given endearing nicknames by the media like "The Punisher," "The Enforcer," and "Dirty Harry" for his anti-crime campaign. His policies have garnered public support in Davao City. It is thus perhaps no suprise that iin recent years, reports of targeted killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children have emerged in the nearby cities of General Santos City, Digos City, and Tagum City in Mindanao as well as Cebu City on the central island of Cebu.
To be concluded in "Part II"
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Annual NPA Dog and Pony Show
Here on our tropical isle of Mindanao some might think that we aren't as blessed as many Westerners are when it comes to the Xmas Season. Those living in colder climes for example, can very easily make do without their calendars and simply observe the changing colours of the leaves, or fill the air grow nippier. No, we may not be able to enjoy THOSE seasonal changes but we likewise have some peculiarly all our own. When one hears the NPA announce a Ceasefire they can fire up that jeepney and race to Swiss Market for some eggnog because you can bet a plethora of Pesos that its time for old Saint Nick to make his presence known. Those that are in the know however will always wait fir the Ceasefire to commence before rushing anywhere since the days leading up to the implementation of the Ceasefire are always the bloodiest of the preceeding year.
Speaking of "implementation," when will this year's quiet time begin? On December 07th the NPA unilaterally announced that this year's Xmas Ceasefire will begin at 6AM, on December 16th and will last (one hopes) until January 03rd. The date of commencement was by no means arbitrary in that December 16th marks the beginning of the Philippine Xmas Season. The duration of 17 days makes the 2010 Ceasefire the longest in a decade. Again, not an arbitrary fact given the fact that almost immediately after the end of the cessation the resumption of the long stalled GRP-NDF Peace Process takes place in Oslo, Norway.
The Ceasefire Announcement took place after a fortuitous week for the NPA and its political facet, the CPP (Communist Party of the Phillipines). On December 01 and 02 in Hong Kong, long time Chairperson of the NDF Peace Panel, Luis Jalandoni met with his GRP counterpart, Alexander "Alex" Padilla in an informal tet a tet. Also present was Jalandoni's wife and #2 on the NDF Panel, Coni Ledesma. Joining Padilla was GRP Panel member Pablito Sanidad and both sides were joined by attorney Rachel Pastores who is consulting for the overall Peace Process. As was expected both Padilla and Jalandoni got along quite well and dates for both Informal Talks (January 14 through January 18) and the First Round of Formal Talks (February 19 through February 25) were tenatively agreed upon pending formal approval by their respective entities.
During their 2 day meeting in Hong Kong Padilla formally handed Jalandoni a copy of the HDO (Hold Departure Order) had been in effect with GRP's Bureau of Immigration since June 29, 1992. HDOs are issued by the DOJ (Department of Justice) and enforced by the Bureau of Immigration when a targeted individual attempts to leave via a commercial flight. Prior to leaving Manila Padilla had been instructed to hand over the official notification by Malacanang's Chief Counsel Ricardo Paras III. In addition, Padilla also handed Jalandoni an official notification that JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) was still viable. JASIG was a product of a 1995 Round in the Peace Process. It allows for NDF Panel members and other NDF members closely involved in the Process to freely enter and leave the Philippimes as well as to remain unmolested during visits. JASIG had been suspended by former-President Arroyo during the 2004 meltdown following the US and EU classification of the CPP-NPA as "Terrorist Organisations." President Arroyo had lobbied hard for the groups' inclusion in an irrational bout of egotism. Her theatrics then derailed the Process until the present.
JASIG is an extremely relevant issue for the entire NDF but more so for Jalandoni on a personal level given that his aged mother, still in tje Philippines, is quite ill. Jalandoni had wanted to visit his mother for perhaps the last time but the questuin of JASIG's viability loomed large. Jalandoni et al had been informed that President Arroyo had actually lifted her own Suspension Order on July 17, 2009 but without an official notification that fact didn't mean much. On December 04, official notifications in hand, Jalandoni and his wife arrived in Manila aboard a Cathay Pacific flight out of Hong Kong.
As I mentioned, the days leading up to the annual Xmas Ceasefires are inevitably filled with the blood and gore of increasingly bold tactically offencive operations. Case in point? Ka Parago's evening visit to the CAFGU post in Davao City's Barangay Mapula. The post is located in the city's Paquibato District, 1 of 4 city districts in which former Mayor (and current Vice Mayor under his daughter Sarah Duterte Carpio) Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte had given the NPA free reign.
When Vice Mayor Duterte was stlll a Davao City Prosecutor he had come to a working arrangement with the Maoists.
By 1984, not long after Ka Parago had moved his family from Laak in Davao del Norte Province (the town is now within Compostela Valley Province, aka ComVal, the province later carved out of the northwest corner of Davao del Norte) to the coastal bsrangay of Isla Verde in Davao City the NPA was so deeply ensconced in the poorer barangays that ring Mindanao's largest city that authorities all but conceeded it as NPA territory. From 1979 until that point the organisation had been exponentially all over the Central and Southern Philippines. As so often happens in such situations this uber-rapid expansion severely weakened the NPA's ideological foundation. Forget about Mao, most NPA regulars of the era had no idea who Marx was (granted that today that things have not progressed all that much).
As with any base of power people were joining the NPA for a variety of reasons and virtually none of them were good. Among them were a group of petty criminals in the city's Agado District, an area encompassing some of the city's most depressed barangays.By mid-1984 the NPA began cleaning house, deploying SPARU Teams (Special Partisan Armed Revolutionary Units, often mis transliterated as "Sparrow") to publicly murder NPA members that ran afoul of their hierarchy (in addition to the assasinations of PNP, government officials, informers and non-combatants the group erroneously marked as informers). As SPARU operations became much more frequent elements like those petty criminals abandoned ship. Knowing that withdrawing from the NPA not only did nothing to alleviate their vulnerability but actually made them much more probable targets they banded together and formed an anti-NPA organisation called "Alsa Masa" (Masses Arise).
A lot has been said, erroneously, about Vice Mayor Duterte's suuport of Alsa Masa. Indeed it is claimed often enough that he led the organisation! Duterte did reluctantly develop a working relationship with the group after intially targetting them for prosecution. He really did not have a choice in the matter after the AFP officially sanctioned the group as an integral cog in its Force Multiplication scheme in the Davao Region. By the time the late President Corazon Aquino came to town amd vowed to support Alsa Masa in a nationally televised speech Duterte had long been in bed with the group.
Alsa Masa was the tip of the iceberg in the AFP's anti-Communist Force Multiplication so that by the start of 1989 the NPA was relegated to the city's hinterlands, where it has remained ensconced ever since. The afore mentioned 4 NPA controoled districts, Paquibato, Tugbok, Marilog and Toril (Calinan and Baguio also have a moderate presence if not used tactically), have been consigned to the NPA with understanding that they will refrain from re-entering (or entering as the case may be) the city's other districts. One could say Duterte has merely been a pragmatist but others (the brave and the few) say a lot worse.
The AFP almost always refrains from publicly commenting on Duterte's self-described "Back Door Policy" (aaaah, is THAT what they are calling it these days?) though that nearly changed when current Mayor Sarah Duterte Carpio actually crossed the line and withdrew the city's support for AFP operations within the city's borders.Following through on a threat her father had been making for years Carpio severed municipal support while accusing the AFP of disregard for non-combatants in those 4 NPA controlled districts. The 2 sides have since made uo with Carpio giving the keynote speech at the Commencement Ceremony for a
P and D Mission (Peace and Development, civic oriented projects such as infrastructural improvements or MEDCAPS, aka medical and dental fairs...though in this case the operation merely involved the recently arrived 84 Infantry Battalion doing a house by house census in Toril District). In her speech Carpio lauded the non-combative nature of the current operation and pledged Davao City's assistance.
When one mentions the NPA and Davao City in the same sentence it is a fair assumption that Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao's name will soon be following. Pitao is the CO (Commanding Officer) of the Merardo Arce Command, a battalion sized entity that while primarily operating within the 4 districts I mentioned also inclucludes Davao del Sur (the province in which Davao City sits) as well as parts of Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental Provinces. Comprised of 5 COYs (Companies, a "COY" generally contains 90 to 110 riflemen) of which only 4 are currently operational. Of these COYs, Pulang Bagani Company 1 through 5 (Red Warriors Company 1 through 5), Pitao personally commands Coy 1. Known as Pulang Bagani Company 1, or PBC1, it perhaps the best equipped of all NPA elements on Mindanao, if not the entire nation.
In a long and often brutal relationship the AFP hace. Been at each others' throats. Aside from capturing him at his family home after his sister Evelyn tipped authorities, he has never been caught and this fact cause an extreme amount of consternation. The capture I just mentioned took place almost immediatel after PBC1 released s Brigadier General it captured along with other AFP personnel. That capture was an amazing propaganda coup for the Communist and so it really msade Pitao the highest value target. In the end he spent just over a year incarcerated before being freed sans pre-conditions as President Estrada sought to jumpstart the GRP-NDF Peace Process.
From 2000 onwards Pitao loomed extremely large in AFP sights.
In June of 2008 Pitao's younger brother Danilo was abducted and summarily executed. Unlike his older brother Danilo not only stayed on the right side of the law but actually worked as a Provincial Guard in the Davao del Norte Provincial Capitol Complex in Tagum City. With a sister turned informer and a brother murdered, both because of his role in the insurgency Pitao might have re-thought his long involvement with the organisation...but in fact it seems to have only strengthened his resolve.
After a series of stunning tactical operations in early 2009, Pitao's youngest daughter, Rebelyn "Ivy" Maasin Pitao was kidnnapped as she returned to the family's home in Bago Gallera in Davao City. Found the next day,in Davao del Norte Province, her corpse half naked, physically tortured (including sexually), the 20 year old paid the highest price for her father's membership in the NPA. The AFP denied all involvement but despite its initial reluctance to do so, opened an internal investigation into the matter. Predicting correctly that the military would do nothing the NPA conducted its own investigation and pointed the finger at an AFP Intelligence detachment ensconced in the town of Carmen, Davao del Norte Province and even listed involved personnel by name. After placing the personnel on Restriction to Barracks for almost 3 months the investigation was swept under the rug...though the NPA deployed SPARU Teams who killed a number of the listed men.
Fast forward to December 10, 2010 and Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao's PBC1 abducted the Barangay Captain of Barangay Mapula and a well known local datu (tribal chief) and while wearing AFP uniforms had the Barangay Captain and datuaccompany them to the Barangay Mapula's CAFGU (Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit), an official paramilitary under direct supervision of the AFP) post. Using the Barangay Captain and datu to infiltrate the post compound. Once inside they disarmed all personnel and made off with a nice haul. I am sure that they will look great under the tree...
Not a single shot fired, Ka Parago strikes again.
Speaking of "implementation," when will this year's quiet time begin? On December 07th the NPA unilaterally announced that this year's Xmas Ceasefire will begin at 6AM, on December 16th and will last (one hopes) until January 03rd. The date of commencement was by no means arbitrary in that December 16th marks the beginning of the Philippine Xmas Season. The duration of 17 days makes the 2010 Ceasefire the longest in a decade. Again, not an arbitrary fact given the fact that almost immediately after the end of the cessation the resumption of the long stalled GRP-NDF Peace Process takes place in Oslo, Norway.
The Ceasefire Announcement took place after a fortuitous week for the NPA and its political facet, the CPP (Communist Party of the Phillipines). On December 01 and 02 in Hong Kong, long time Chairperson of the NDF Peace Panel, Luis Jalandoni met with his GRP counterpart, Alexander "Alex" Padilla in an informal tet a tet. Also present was Jalandoni's wife and #2 on the NDF Panel, Coni Ledesma. Joining Padilla was GRP Panel member Pablito Sanidad and both sides were joined by attorney Rachel Pastores who is consulting for the overall Peace Process. As was expected both Padilla and Jalandoni got along quite well and dates for both Informal Talks (January 14 through January 18) and the First Round of Formal Talks (February 19 through February 25) were tenatively agreed upon pending formal approval by their respective entities.
During their 2 day meeting in Hong Kong Padilla formally handed Jalandoni a copy of the HDO (Hold Departure Order) had been in effect with GRP's Bureau of Immigration since June 29, 1992. HDOs are issued by the DOJ (Department of Justice) and enforced by the Bureau of Immigration when a targeted individual attempts to leave via a commercial flight. Prior to leaving Manila Padilla had been instructed to hand over the official notification by Malacanang's Chief Counsel Ricardo Paras III. In addition, Padilla also handed Jalandoni an official notification that JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) was still viable. JASIG was a product of a 1995 Round in the Peace Process. It allows for NDF Panel members and other NDF members closely involved in the Process to freely enter and leave the Philippimes as well as to remain unmolested during visits. JASIG had been suspended by former-President Arroyo during the 2004 meltdown following the US and EU classification of the CPP-NPA as "Terrorist Organisations." President Arroyo had lobbied hard for the groups' inclusion in an irrational bout of egotism. Her theatrics then derailed the Process until the present.
JASIG is an extremely relevant issue for the entire NDF but more so for Jalandoni on a personal level given that his aged mother, still in tje Philippines, is quite ill. Jalandoni had wanted to visit his mother for perhaps the last time but the questuin of JASIG's viability loomed large. Jalandoni et al had been informed that President Arroyo had actually lifted her own Suspension Order on July 17, 2009 but without an official notification that fact didn't mean much. On December 04, official notifications in hand, Jalandoni and his wife arrived in Manila aboard a Cathay Pacific flight out of Hong Kong.
As I mentioned, the days leading up to the annual Xmas Ceasefires are inevitably filled with the blood and gore of increasingly bold tactically offencive operations. Case in point? Ka Parago's evening visit to the CAFGU post in Davao City's Barangay Mapula. The post is located in the city's Paquibato District, 1 of 4 city districts in which former Mayor (and current Vice Mayor under his daughter Sarah Duterte Carpio) Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte had given the NPA free reign.
When Vice Mayor Duterte was stlll a Davao City Prosecutor he had come to a working arrangement with the Maoists.
By 1984, not long after Ka Parago had moved his family from Laak in Davao del Norte Province (the town is now within Compostela Valley Province, aka ComVal, the province later carved out of the northwest corner of Davao del Norte) to the coastal bsrangay of Isla Verde in Davao City the NPA was so deeply ensconced in the poorer barangays that ring Mindanao's largest city that authorities all but conceeded it as NPA territory. From 1979 until that point the organisation had been exponentially all over the Central and Southern Philippines. As so often happens in such situations this uber-rapid expansion severely weakened the NPA's ideological foundation. Forget about Mao, most NPA regulars of the era had no idea who Marx was (granted that today that things have not progressed all that much).
As with any base of power people were joining the NPA for a variety of reasons and virtually none of them were good. Among them were a group of petty criminals in the city's Agado District, an area encompassing some of the city's most depressed barangays.By mid-1984 the NPA began cleaning house, deploying SPARU Teams (Special Partisan Armed Revolutionary Units, often mis transliterated as "Sparrow") to publicly murder NPA members that ran afoul of their hierarchy (in addition to the assasinations of PNP, government officials, informers and non-combatants the group erroneously marked as informers). As SPARU operations became much more frequent elements like those petty criminals abandoned ship. Knowing that withdrawing from the NPA not only did nothing to alleviate their vulnerability but actually made them much more probable targets they banded together and formed an anti-NPA organisation called "Alsa Masa" (Masses Arise).
A lot has been said, erroneously, about Vice Mayor Duterte's suuport of Alsa Masa. Indeed it is claimed often enough that he led the organisation! Duterte did reluctantly develop a working relationship with the group after intially targetting them for prosecution. He really did not have a choice in the matter after the AFP officially sanctioned the group as an integral cog in its Force Multiplication scheme in the Davao Region. By the time the late President Corazon Aquino came to town amd vowed to support Alsa Masa in a nationally televised speech Duterte had long been in bed with the group.
Alsa Masa was the tip of the iceberg in the AFP's anti-Communist Force Multiplication so that by the start of 1989 the NPA was relegated to the city's hinterlands, where it has remained ensconced ever since. The afore mentioned 4 NPA controoled districts, Paquibato, Tugbok, Marilog and Toril (Calinan and Baguio also have a moderate presence if not used tactically), have been consigned to the NPA with understanding that they will refrain from re-entering (or entering as the case may be) the city's other districts. One could say Duterte has merely been a pragmatist but others (the brave and the few) say a lot worse.
The AFP almost always refrains from publicly commenting on Duterte's self-described "Back Door Policy" (aaaah, is THAT what they are calling it these days?) though that nearly changed when current Mayor Sarah Duterte Carpio actually crossed the line and withdrew the city's support for AFP operations within the city's borders.Following through on a threat her father had been making for years Carpio severed municipal support while accusing the AFP of disregard for non-combatants in those 4 NPA controlled districts. The 2 sides have since made uo with Carpio giving the keynote speech at the Commencement Ceremony for a
P and D Mission (Peace and Development, civic oriented projects such as infrastructural improvements or MEDCAPS, aka medical and dental fairs...though in this case the operation merely involved the recently arrived 84 Infantry Battalion doing a house by house census in Toril District). In her speech Carpio lauded the non-combative nature of the current operation and pledged Davao City's assistance.
When one mentions the NPA and Davao City in the same sentence it is a fair assumption that Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao's name will soon be following. Pitao is the CO (Commanding Officer) of the Merardo Arce Command, a battalion sized entity that while primarily operating within the 4 districts I mentioned also inclucludes Davao del Sur (the province in which Davao City sits) as well as parts of Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental Provinces. Comprised of 5 COYs (Companies, a "COY" generally contains 90 to 110 riflemen) of which only 4 are currently operational. Of these COYs, Pulang Bagani Company 1 through 5 (Red Warriors Company 1 through 5), Pitao personally commands Coy 1. Known as Pulang Bagani Company 1, or PBC1, it perhaps the best equipped of all NPA elements on Mindanao, if not the entire nation.
In a long and often brutal relationship the AFP hace. Been at each others' throats. Aside from capturing him at his family home after his sister Evelyn tipped authorities, he has never been caught and this fact cause an extreme amount of consternation. The capture I just mentioned took place almost immediatel after PBC1 released s Brigadier General it captured along with other AFP personnel. That capture was an amazing propaganda coup for the Communist and so it really msade Pitao the highest value target. In the end he spent just over a year incarcerated before being freed sans pre-conditions as President Estrada sought to jumpstart the GRP-NDF Peace Process.
From 2000 onwards Pitao loomed extremely large in AFP sights.
In June of 2008 Pitao's younger brother Danilo was abducted and summarily executed. Unlike his older brother Danilo not only stayed on the right side of the law but actually worked as a Provincial Guard in the Davao del Norte Provincial Capitol Complex in Tagum City. With a sister turned informer and a brother murdered, both because of his role in the insurgency Pitao might have re-thought his long involvement with the organisation...but in fact it seems to have only strengthened his resolve.
After a series of stunning tactical operations in early 2009, Pitao's youngest daughter, Rebelyn "Ivy" Maasin Pitao was kidnnapped as she returned to the family's home in Bago Gallera in Davao City. Found the next day,in Davao del Norte Province, her corpse half naked, physically tortured (including sexually), the 20 year old paid the highest price for her father's membership in the NPA. The AFP denied all involvement but despite its initial reluctance to do so, opened an internal investigation into the matter. Predicting correctly that the military would do nothing the NPA conducted its own investigation and pointed the finger at an AFP Intelligence detachment ensconced in the town of Carmen, Davao del Norte Province and even listed involved personnel by name. After placing the personnel on Restriction to Barracks for almost 3 months the investigation was swept under the rug...though the NPA deployed SPARU Teams who killed a number of the listed men.
Fast forward to December 10, 2010 and Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao's PBC1 abducted the Barangay Captain of Barangay Mapula and a well known local datu (tribal chief) and while wearing AFP uniforms had the Barangay Captain and datuaccompany them to the Barangay Mapula's CAFGU (Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit), an official paramilitary under direct supervision of the AFP) post. Using the Barangay Captain and datu to infiltrate the post compound. Once inside they disarmed all personnel and made off with a nice haul. I am sure that they will look great under the tree...
Not a single shot fired, Ka Parago strikes again.
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