Captors release Albay militant prior to ‘amparo’

LEGAZPI CITY--SURVIVING WHAT COULD have been another extrajudicial slaying, former Bayan Muna Albay coordinator Noel Samar, 33, who was abducted by suspected soldiers Tuesday, was dropped off on a highway in Guinobatan, Albay Wednesday by his abductors, who even gave him P100 “so he can take a ride home.”

Vic Mirafuentes, spokesperson of human rights group Karapatan in Albay, said Thursday that Samar was released in Barangay Banao blindfolded, with no traces of physical torture but in a state of shock.

After his release, Samar refused to be interviewed for security reasons, Mirafuentes added.

The victim’s wife, though, Rogelyn Samar, 30, tagged the military as responsible for the abduction, quoting eyewitnesses in the neighborhood, prior to her husband’s release.

Rogelyn told the Inquirer earlier that the family will file a writ of amparo if her husband was not surfaced in two days.

Mirafuentes said the presence of witnesses, the support of militant groups for the victim’s family, and media coverage could have been important factors in Samar’s release.

Samar was an active leader of the League of Filipino Students and became a Bayan Muna coordinator for Albay in 2001.

He was abducted by eight to nine armed men while tending his retail store in Barangay Layon, Ligao City.

Rogelyn said that, according to witnesses, two men with closely cropped hair were seen buying soft drinks from her husband.

She said the same men grabbed Samar and hit him in the head with a .45 cal. pistol.

She added that when her husband lost consciousness, he was handcuffed and carried to an L-300 white Mitsubishi van that fled while being followed by two motorcycles. Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon

Kin of seized Albay militant to file ‘amparo’

LEGAZPI CITY—-RELATIVES of a former Bayan Muna coordinator in Albay, who was abducted by suspected military men at about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, will file a writ of amparo if the victim hasn’t surfaced in two days.

Human rights group Karapatan in Bicol identified the victim as Noel Samar, 33, married with three children.

Vince Casilihan, a staff member of Karapatan-Bicol, said Samar was an active leader of the League of Filipino Students and became a Bayan Muna coordinator for Albay in 2001.

Samar was abducted by eight to nine armed men while tending his retail store in Barangay Layon, Ligao City.

The victim’s wife, Rogelyn, 30, quoted eyewitnesses as saying that two men with closely cropped hair were seen buying soft drinks from her husband.

“Our neighbors said that when my husband was about to give them the soft drinks he was grabbed and hit in the head with a .45-cal. gun,” Rogelyn said.

She added that when her husband lost consciousness, he was handcuffed and carried to a L-300 white Mitsubishi van that quickly fled while being followed by two motorcycles.

The eyewitnesses noted that the L-300 van bore the license plate number DTB-165, Casilihan said, but the Ligao City police found that the number was not registered with the Land Transportation Office.

“Our family thinks this has something to do with my husband’s militant affiliations, though he never told me of any threats to his life,” Rogelyn said.

She said she was at work when the abduction happened and when she got home police were already in the area investigating.

She said she went to the military command based in Barangay Tula-Tula in Ligao City to inform its officials of the abduction.

“The military neither affirmed nor denied they had something to do with my husband’s abduction,” Rogelyn said in a mobile phone interview.

However, she said, the family had decided to be vocal in accusing the military.

“Based on our analysis, the way my husband was abducted is the same way other activists are being abducted by alleged military units,” Rogelyn said.

Casilihan said Samar is the eighth militant leader abducted in the Bicol region since 2001. Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon

2 more Bayan Muna leaders slain in Bicol

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.