28 April 2006
By Delfin T. Mallari Jr.and Ephraim Aguilar
PDI Southern Luzon Bureau
ONCE TARGETED BY THE MILITARY’S ALLEGED death squads, a leftist activist has only three months to live.
Bayan Muna national deputy secretary general Robert de Castro made this statement yesterday as two more militant leaders were felled by unidentified assassins in separate attacks in Daet, Camarines Norte, and Daraga, Albay.
The back-to-back killings of Jayson Delen in Daet and Jim Mirafuentes in Daraga brought to more than 100 the number of militant activists murdered in different parts of the country since 2001.
Delen, Bayan Muna-Camarines Norte secretary general, was shot dead by two men on a motorcycle along Litana Street at 9:45 a.m., police said.
He suffered five bullet wounds and died on the spot, police added.
Death on the farm
Mirafuentes, a member of Bayan Muna and the president of a local urban poor association, was gunned down at around 9 a.m. in Kilicao village in Daraga, according to police.
Mirafuentes, 48, was tilling his farm in Sitio Matagbac when two of five unidentified men approached him and opened fire, said investigator SPO2 Francisco Mendevil.
The victim suffered bullet wounds in the head, neck and chest, De Castro said in a phone interview.
The murders occurred five days after Bayan Muna member Marilou Rubio and her brother were killed, also by unidentified men in General Nakar town in Quezon.
3-month timetable
De Castro linked the killings to a statement by Lt. Gen. Pedro Cabuay, Armed Forces Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) chief, that the “insurgency problem in Bicol had been cleaned up.”
“We fear that he was referring to us, the legitimate organizations,” De Castro said.
The military has denied any hand in the murders.
De Castro claimed the three-month timetable on the life of a targeted militant leader was in line with Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), a purported military campaign to destroy the communist New
People’s Army and other leftist groups in five years’ time.
He called Bantay Laya a “vicious” plan.
Special groups
“That’s why there is always an OBL victim every three months in different areas across the country,” he said.
De Castro alleged that various military commands had their own special intelligence groups whose sole task was to monitor sectoral organizations and identify target personalities for liquidation.
He said the main goal of the OBL as defined in the military plan was to destroy the revolutionary movement, including its political infrastructure, and sectoral front organizations.
“Meaning, the legal militant organizations like Bayan Muna,” he said.
Like Oplan Phoenix
He likened OBL to the US’ Oplan Phoenix during the Vietnam War that supposedly resulted in the massacre of innocent Vietnamese peasants.
“OBL differed only in the sense that the desired impact of the assassination is to sow fear and terror among members and supporters of the target personality,” he said.
Brig. Gen. Jose Angel Honrado, Armed Forces spokesperson, has confirmed the existence of OBL but stressed it had nothing to do with legal leftist organizations.
Cabuay strongly denied accusations of military involvement in the killings and hinted the murders could have been perpetrated by NPA rebels themselves.
Claims all a rehash
Army Maj. Jose Broso, Solcom spokesperson, also rejected claims that soldiers were responsible for the killing of militants in Bicol.
“There they go again. The accusations from the leftist groups were all rehashed and were perpetual charges against the military,” Broso said in a phone interview.
He added: “Why can’t these groups just help in the police investigation to identify the suspects and file the corresponding charges, instead of being quick on the draw with all these baseless and unfounded allegations.”
Broso stressed that the military’s combat offensive was only directed at legitimate targets, the NPA guerrillas.
Killing their own
“The leftists can stage daily protests and rallies. The police antidisturbance units can very well take care of them,” he said.
Cabuay hinted that the killing of activists could have been perpetrated by the NPA themselves in a fit of paranoia similar to the communist purges in the early 1990s.
In late March, Cris Hugo, League of Filipino Students regional coordinator, was gunned down in Legazpi City, Albay, while the wife and 5-year-old son of Anakpawis coordinator Amante Abelon were slain in Castillejos town in Zambales.
In the fourth quarter of 2005, three militant leaders were killed in Central Luzon. The victims included Ricardo Ramos, president of the workers’ union at the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City.
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