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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Who�s Killing Whom? By Antonio C. Abaya Written May 30, 2006 For the Stnadard Today, June 01 issue The assassination last May 29 in Albay of Sotero Llamas, a former head of the New People�s Army in Bicol and a former �consultant� to communist rebels negotiating a peace settlement with the government, has raised the ante in the on-going wave of killings that has swept the country since 2001. By media�s count, Llamas is the 224th militant to be killed by unknown assailants since President Arroyo rose to power in January 2001. Simultaneous with the killing of communists and perceived pro-communist militants has been an equally appalling wave of print or broadcast journalists being assassinated in various parts of the country. More than 75, at last count. Are the two waves connected to each other? Probably not, although there is a subtle undertow in print media to insinuate a connection, probably to embarrass the government as likely mastermind of the killings, and to elicit broad-based sympathy for the misfortunes of both groups. But an overwhelming majority of the assassinated journalists were practicing their trade in provincial urbanized centers, not in Metro Manila. This suggests that they were involved in local issues, either as crusading fiscalizers of erring local government officials or as outspoken critics of illegal loggers, drug lords, gambling lords, rogue policemen and other local or regional criminals (who may also be the local government officials � mayors, vice-mayors, councilors, police chiefs � or their relatives). The inability or reluctance of the police to come up with suspects in most of these murders suggests that the police themselves may be in cahoots with the local criminals and/or local government officials that the crusading journalists had offended with their exposes. The actual killers are almost certainly guns-for-hire, coldly stalking and waylaying their preys for cash. If I were calling the shots, I would assign the investigation to the National Bureau of Investigation. And the first step should be to draw up a matrix of possible suspects, generically, without naming any names.. This can be done by scrutinizing the printed opinion pieces or the recordings of the radio broadcasts of the journalists before they were killed, and comparing these individual details with the generic matrix. Whom were they attacking in their columns or radio programs before they were killed? The mayor, the vice-mayor, a municipal councilor, the police chief, the local jueteng lord, the local drug pusher, the local illegal logger, the local prostitution lord? I believe a close scrutiny will reveal a pattern and suspects can be identified in most of the cases. And my sense is that there is little or no ideology involved in the salvaging of these journalists. Just greed. As long as there is no effort on the part of the national government to scrutinize these murders in the manner outlined above, the killings will continue. We are indeed the second most dangerous place in the world for journalists, next only to Iraq. Another of those humiliating distinctions that this country has had to suffer in shame. At least we are not the murder or kidnapping or drug trafficking capital of the world. Those dubious honors belong to Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. As for the killing of communist and perceived pro-communist militants, ideology is obviously the primary, even sole, motivation. Military death squads are the prime suspects. But internecine warfare between rival communist groups cannot and should not be ruled out. It should be kept in mind that the Philippine communist movement was sundered by a major schism in 1991-92. Popoy Lagman led communist cadres of Metro Manila and Rizal � the best informed among the communists - in a breakaway faction called the Rejectionists, who rejected the Maoist strategy of Jose Maria Sison. Those who remained loyal to Sison called themselves Reaffirmists, reaffirming their belief in the efficacy of the Maoist strategy. Lagman had reasoned that the Sison�s Maoist strategy of waging revolution in the countryside, using a politicized peasantry, failed to take leadership position in the urban uprising by the middle class in February 1986 � the Edsa I People Power � because most of Sison�s cadres were in the provinces. Lagman and his Rejectionists vowed to concentrate on politicizing the urban squatters and trade unions and promised that when the next urban uprising comes �as it did in January 2001, Edsa II � he would take control of it and turn it into a socialist revolution in the manner of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, in pursuit of the allegedly inevitable triumph of Communism. Of course, Lagman failed to take leadership of Edsa II either, but he allied himself and his group with the Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA) of Peping Cojuangco and Pastor Saycon who were bitter at President Arroyo for not rewarding them with Cabinet positions, despite their self-appointed roles in deposing Joseph Estrada from the presidency. Lagman�s main formation, Sanlakas, and COPA adopted the syntactically tortured slogan �Resign, all!�, meaning PGMA, Noli de Castro and everyone else in government should resign. (In a tit-for-tat, President Arroyo played footsies with the Reaffirmists of Joma Sison by publicly breaking bread with his followers led by Satur Ocampo.) Popoy Lagman�s apostasy from the One and Only True Faith of Joma Sison cost him and his lieutenants dearly. In 2003, Lagman was assassinated by persons unknown. So were two of the leading Rejectionists in 2004: Rolly Kintanar and Arturo Tabara. While no one has claimed responsibility for the hits, suspicions are rife that they had been ordered by Jose Maria Stalin. It is therefore very possible that some, even most, of the militants killed since 2003 were done in by fellow communists, the Rejectionists, as revenge for the assassination of their leaders Lagman, Kintanar and Tabara by, it is suspected, the Reaffirmists of Sison. Most of the salvaged militants belonged to organizations loyal to Sison: Bayan, Bayan Muna, KMU, Gabriela and their clones.. No one seems to have noted that when Popoy Lagman broke away from Joma Sison in 1991-92, he took with him not only the cadres of Metro Manila and Rizal province, but also the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB), the dreaded Sparrow assassination squads who in the late 1980s killed more than 200 police and military personnel in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces in non-combat situations, such as while they were directing traffic, washing their cars, eating in a restaurant, etc. Like today�s assassins, the ABB Sparrows then also worked in pairs, riding on motorcycles. These details should be kept in mind by all those concerned about these killings. Military death squads are not the only likely suspects here. The notoriously one-sided Amnesty International, who now wag their fingers at the government and the military for these killings, never uttered one word of protest when the Sparrows went on a rampage in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces in the late 1980s. Neither did Amnesty International protest when the New People�s Army killed hundreds of its own cadres in purges in 1989-1990. Amnesty busybodies should read the agonized report of then Communist ideologue Walden Bello in the Diliman journal Kasarinlan, about ten years ago, who had personally investigated these killings �in an effort to find some meaning in my 20 years of involvement in the Movement,� After due diligence, Bello came to the conclusion that the NPA had executed at least 700 of its own cadres in an effort to ferret out five (yes, five, f-i-v-e, five) suspected military deep penetration agents from their ranks. Another disillusioned NPA member has put that number at 2,000 cadres executed by NPA kangaroo courts. But Norberto Gonzales� estimate of 6,000 is, in my opinion, a self-serving exaggeration.. Yes, my dear Amnesty International and bleeding heart liberals, communists are morally and actually capable of killing their own people, by the hundreds. Ask Jose Maria Stalin, even if he denies personal responsibility. ***** Reactions to [email protected]t. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org. Current articles also in tonyabaya.multiply.com and the tapatt.yahoogroups.com OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to �Who�s Killing Whom?� Whoever is the one killing whom, it is the responsibility of the police and the government to find the assassins. Whatever Malacanang is thinking, they are still the one to blame for not apprehending the responsible assassins. Gil Mateo, [email protected] Daly City, California, June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ANG GALING!!! CONGRATULATIONS. Norberto Castillo, [email protected] June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww It's music to my ears whenever I read somebody is listening and after listening offers his help. Be it advice only, it is still a proper response, in any language, to a call for help. We are never short of good advice, even if it turns out to be wrong in time, like what we are used to getting from our trapos. Pwe! Pasaylo-a. Please forgive me. A couple of days ago, I suggested a "crazy" idea for our "threatened" militants - to get police protection. A day after I made the suggestion here comes the PNP offering police protection for any activist who needs it. [Somehow the PNP is on to me, he-he, wow, sikat!] Could media go for police protection instead of personal guns? Can't trust the protection, do they? Why not? The way media seems to know who are the good guys and bad guys in government and in society, it is a cinch they would know also who the honest and trustworthy police protector/s are. What's the matter? They can't find any now a days? If so, what a pity and how truly dangerous our Philippines is. I happen to think there are still many who can be trusted. Police protection is better than having your own guns. Aw, what is even better is having your own guns, [eh, Mortz?] and having additional personal protection from the police. [BTW Mortz, can you figure out, why Filipinos, known to be great USA copycats, didn't copy the USA constitutional right to bear arms?] This is not to say that Hecky's "a community of organized protective citizenry" is without merits. Because it is meritorious! However, it takes time to "move" to fruition such an idea, which is, as Hecky pointed out is already being successfully done in India. We can begin such a movement but in the meantime what do we do with our threatened crusading living heroes? Theirs is of immediate concern if we go by the large number murdered in their ranks. Hecky's getting together initiative is actually what is missing in our "Western adopted culture of individualists" which is, observably, a very sad departure from our parent's community of extendedfamilies. I believe we can only begin to get these threats diminished once we begin to regain our family and community values like those of old. As a little boy I always looked forward to a "thief chase" in our once quite and low populated barrio. I would always get excited when the whole barrio, do gooders, loafers and all would get aroused at the faintest call of "kawatan!" and drop everything to help catch the thief or thieves. Always, no matter when, day or night, and no matter how long it takes, the felons would be caught, often given the physical punishment the community deemed proper. That was how we kept our barrio safe. Everybody cared to catch the thieves. That was a sight I no longer see today. As the population grew, natural resources diminished and jobs became scarce, it seems the "catch the thief at all costs" syndrome disappeared. The community has greatly changed. Is it because we, ah, most of us if not everybody, due to hard times from overtly exploited, destroyed morality, mis-education, and wrong exposure, has become thieves? My better half says, in a way, with the trapos coaxing and modeling, we have been "influenced." Who honestly pays his taxes? Boy, I am glad that by some miracle I am now legally exempted from paying income taxes. Whew! Still. I believe, right there, in the old community, as Hecky subtly suggested, lays our answers to our threatened lives. Ogie Reyes, [email protected] June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya A list of soldiers and policemen who fell in line of duty should also be listed so that We, the People, "Amnesty International and bleeding hearts liberals" can see how this dirty game is being played among the combatants. Thank you, and I am with you on this issue. Domingo T. Arong, [email protected] June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww What a great piece, Tony.. Jayjay Calero, [email protected] June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww You seem to be very certain about such an uncertain thing. Llamas was last a man of Lacson. Ross Tipon, [email protected] Baguio City, June 02, 2006 MY REPLY. Are you implying then that Llamas was killed by the enemies of Lacson? What evidence do you offer to suggest this? When he was killed, Popoy Lagman was �last a man� of Peping Cojuangco and Pastor Saycon. Are you then implying that Lagman was killed by the enemies of Cojuangco and Saycon? What evidence do you offer to suggest that? wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya Weren�t Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara advisers to the AFP's anti-insurgency campaign? in other words state agents? You're supposed to be an expert on the movement. You should have known that these so-called 'peace deals' with some of the former RJ factions were no different from the arrangements made with the late Conrado Balweg's CPLA. These groups are now the state's paramilitary units tasked to run after their former comrades. That is as clear as day. (All the more reason to suspect that Joma�s reaffirmists killed Kintanar and Tabara. Jose Maria Stalin�s revenge. ACA) So that when you say that the latest wave of summary killings was perpetrated by these RJ factions you are, in effect, saying that these spate of killings is the government's handiwork. This is no longer an ideological, intra-party purge -- but state-sanctioned murders. If you want to look for motives, why don�t you deduce from Jovito Palparan's statements? And about the Amnesty International report, would you expect them to confine their sources to the NSC's or AFP's reports. (No, but AI should read and react to the reports of former Communist ideologues, such as Walden Bello, who personally investigated the intra-party purges of the CPP-NPA and concluded that the NPA killed 700 of its own people to ferret out five SUSPECTED military deep penetration agents. YOU should also read it and educate yourself. ACA) Wasn't Norberto Gonzales caught lying recently about his so-called Bukidnon 'killing fields'? What justifies the AIs existence as a neutral body then if they serve nothing but a mouthpiece of criminal governments? 'Liberal bleeding hearts'? What is so wrong when people weep for their dead? Tell me. (I�ll tell you. When �bleeding heart liberals� weep only for the victims of one side, but not for those of the other, then they become partisan and are no longer credible as observers or critics. ACA) Ferdinand Anno, [email protected] Union Theological Seminary Dasmarinas, Cavite, June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Yes Tony I remember those killings. I remember also that this communist supporter Amnesty International and bleeding heart liberals did not wag a finger, nor complaint; but merely playing dumb. Personally I don't like any killing at all, but accusing the GMA administration of allowing those killings or the military of doing the killings are absurd. Paul Dalde, [email protected] Beaumont, Texas, June 02, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: From one columnist to another, I think it's time that I clarified your misimpression of COPA, how it is structured, and more importantly - how we relate with GMA. I also owe it to the majority of COPA members and former members, as COPA founder and former Chairman, that the facts are established, as follows: 1. COPA is not the fiefdom of Peping Cojuangco and Pastor "Boy" Saycon. COPA is and has always functioned as a democratic civil society group where the majority prevails. In fact, Peping is an odd-man-out in COPA - being the only traditional politician in COPA. COPA is not a traditional political organization that is dominated by a patron. On many occasions, Peping Cojuangco found himself alone on voting against positions that COPA took. The best example of this was when we voted for an ANYBODY BUT JDV stand for the new speaker of the post-EDSA II congress. Peping was the only who voted against taking such a stand. COPA felt that JDV did not exemplify the Spirit of EDSA II which, it turned out, GMA also shafted. Boy Saycon may have given the impression that he runs the COPA show because he is the elected Secretary General and Spokesman. His prominence is mainly due to the fact that the COPA members are not comfortable doing what he does as Sec-Gen and being the spokesman in media. Most of the COPA members are very private persons who merely want to help straighten out the mess our country is in. When I left COPA in November 2003 together with many of its members to start a new undertaking (community building projects in synch with the Focolare Movement), you hardly heard of COPA anymore. Boy and Peping remained in COPA but there was no significant COPA activity from that time on. That says a lot of who really were running COPA doesn't it. 2. "COPA is at odds with GMA because she did not give COPA members cabinet positions" is a falsehood, the spin of GMA's information people. COPA members did not ask for cabinet positions. It was GMA who sought to meet with us on January 11, 2001, 10 days before she became president, AND SUGGESTED THAT WE STATE WHAT WE WANT AND GIVE OUR SUGGESTIONS TO HER HEAD HUNTER TEAM. We never asked for any position. How can we when we took a stand of RESIGN ALL and told her so in that meeting. GMA was bothered by the RESIGN ALL clamor of most of the EDSA II players (only the loud but hollow - in actual numbers - KOMPIL II backed her and that is why KOMPIL II people were all over her administration) and she knew that COPA was key to winning over the RESIGN ALL people. She asked for that meeting at the residence of Peping Cojuangco, brought along her brother Buboy (who COPA is comfortable with) and my wife's cousin, Cynthia Carrion. Being the Chairman, I (not Peping or Boy) was asked by COPA to speak on their behalf. In that meeting, face to face with GMA, I spelled out the three reasons why we cannot support her. We ended the meeting by agreeing only to do the following: a. We will continue to press for the resignation of Erap. b. We will go separate ways. We remain with the rest of the EDSA II groups on the RESIGN ALL position. GMA can do what she wants for herself. 3. During the events that were leading to EDSA II, there were many who were passing themselves off as COPA. From a membership of 22, COPA appeared to have as many as 200 during those days of January and February 2001. This was primarily due to the fact that COPA did start the string of events (Juetengate) that led to EDSA II. COPA did the impossible - we managed to put together the forces of the right and the left under one agenda which is to force Erap to resign. People may not want to credit COPA for that (starting the EDSA II events and putting together the left and the right) but those are historical facts. The "asking for positions" impression was created by these individuals who liaised with COPA and were soon considering themselves as members of COPA. By March 2001, it finally sunk in the minds of these people who claimed to be members of COPA that the best way not to get a post in the GMA government is to be associated with COPA. We were soon back to our roster of 22. Most of the real COPA members either have been through with serving in government (like me and Maria Montelibano during the Cory years and Louie Sison during the Ramos years) or are retired private sector people who have no desire to work again, especially take on a government job. We should get together and have coffee one of these days. Best regards, Billy M. Esposo, [email protected] June 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I wish to congratulate you for your article last June 1, "Who�s Killing Whom?" Excellent! Best regards, Manoling Morato, [email protected] June 03, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I've actually asked Joma the question and he's denied the killings. This was on the record. Anna de Brux, [email protected] Belgium, June 04, 2006 MY REPLY. Did you really expect Joma to admit to you, a non-politburo member, involvement in those killings? And on the record, too? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |