Cops harass Kalinga, MP elders

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BONTOC, Mt. Province (Oct. 9) — Harassed and illegally searched at a Mountain Province checkpoint, Cordillera elders, peace pact-holders, bodong facilitators and guests who came from a peace pact in Natonin assailed police arrogance and demanded a stop to military atrocities

The said elders and youth from Basao, Tinglayan in Kalinga and the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) members were flagged down by elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Mountain Province led by Bontoc Chief of Police Pablo Undalo at around 2:26 P.M. on October 7 at the Sukit national highway. The police invoked the Commission on Election (Comelec) gun ban.

The delegation just came from the October 5 to 7 Basao-Tonglayan bodong (peace pact) in Tonglayan that ended a 38-year tribal conflict in Tonglayan, Natonin in Mountain Province.

In a statement, CPA Secretary-general Windel Bolinget said, “They definitely earned the ire and fury of our indigenous elders for their disrespect and arrogance,” as the CPA strongly condemns the PNP for its utter disrespect to our indigenous elders and peace pact holders and integrity of the bodong and gross human rights violation.”

CPA demands PNP officials to take proper actions and implement due punishments to police elements involved in the said incident. “We call on the provincial government of Mt. Province to join us in condemning this incident, as we heighten our demand to stop militarization in Mt. Province and all Cordillera provinces,” the statement said.

Bolinget said Mt. Province Gov. Dalog knew of the celebrations in Natonin. He said Dalog even sent representatives from the Office of the Governor, and the provincial National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to witness the bodong.

At the checkpoint, Bolinget disclosed, around 15 armed elements of the Provincial Mobile Group-PNP and municipal police carrying M-14 and M-16 rifles ordered the delegation to alight from the two jeeps and conducted an illegal search of their personal belongings with their arms aimed at the vehicles. Some of the elders and youth were illegally searched.

“The vehicle used by the CPA Regional Secretariat and the CPA-Mt. Province was especially searched, where doors were immediately opened and bags were ordered open even with the refusal of the passengers, and their assertion that the PNP did not have any right to search personal belongings without warrant,” Bolinget said.

Bolinget added the vehicle’s front seat was even pushed over to check behind it. He said Undalos was in civilian clothes while giving orders, one PNP element, identified as Jessie Lopez, also in civilian clothes, took pictures of the passengers.

“Another unidentified PNP element aggressively took pictures and accidentally blurted out to one of the CPA secretariat, ‘Nai-tip kayo gamin nga adda ti sabali nga karga yu’(somebody tipped the police that you are carrying something),” Bolinget recalled the police as saying.

Undalos, however, kept saying that the whole incident was “routinary” as a part of the Comelec gun ban.

CPA later found out that the order came from PNP Assistant Provincial Director William Viteno as he alleged the vehicles contained firearms.

“It reflects the inefficiency of the PNP’s intelligence work, basing its actions on mere hearsay. Believing that the two jeeps indeed carried guns, the PNP elements at the checkpoint could have easily staged an ambush or fired at the passengers,” Bolinget stressed.

Bolinget further said the incident is part of the continuing ploy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to discredit and hound legitimate progressive organizations. He added some of the elders and youth were traumatized. “The whole incident was obviously propped up to create a situation that would suit whatever ill intentions the PNP had,” he said.

The elders from Basao are members of the Binodngan Peoples Organization (BPO), a federation of tribes affiliated with the CPA. Representatives of an elder’s organization MAITUD (Movement for Inter Tribal Unity and Development) also participated in the said activity. The activity was actually simultaneous with another elders gathering in Kalinga, the 6th BPO General Assembly that was attended by the other elders and youth of Basao. # Abigail T. Bengwayan for NORDIS