NORDIS WEEKLY
March 19, 2006

 

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Speedy justice urged for Tabuk massacre

Local folk frown at senseless killings

TABUK, Kalinga (March 17) — Several local leaders asked the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the provincial government here to investigate and resolve the massacre of a 48-year old woman leader, her husband and a son-in-law on March 7, the eve of the International Working Women’s Day by still unidentified hooded men.

Mercy Mased Gonzalo, provincial council member of Innabuyog-Gabriela Kalinga died with husband Salvador and her son-in-law Charlie Cadater at around 8:00 P.M. in Ubbog, Magsaysay here.

“We cannot remain silent and allow our hopes to dim,” at least 14 leaders said in a joint statement of the Innabuyog-Kalinga, KALIPI-Kalinga, Rural Improvement Club, Episcopal Church Women, BITIK, CWA, CINDIWOL, all women organizations, and four other leaders of Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Binodngan People’s Organization, Timpuyog ti Mannalon ti Kalinga and Anakbayan-Kalinga.

According to the said statement Mercy and her family were senselessly attacked in the name of indiscriminate “blood revenge fostered by a society that tolerates tribal violence”, referring to a tribal conflict that might have triggered the massacre.

Innabuyog-Gabriela Secretary General Vernie Yocogan Diano said they are alarmed by the spate of criminality in Tabuk despite its title as matagoan, (peace zone). She said criminality remains unabated, killings happen and tribal war is often used as a justification.

Earlier, Judge Milner Lammawin and Mr. Manuel Dulawon were killed on separate occasions and their cases remained unsolved as in many other less known victims.

“The incidents of killings in Tabuk are indeed posing a real threat to innocent people’s lives and security,” Innabuyog-Gabriela said in a statement.

Mercy used to be the vice chairperson of Upper Apatan Women’s Club in Pinukpok, also in Kalinga, where she used to live as a poor peasant. She was also a mangngagas, a medicine woman, sought after by her neighbors who could barely afford health care, being the vice-chair of a community health committee in Apatan. Later, when her family moved to Tabuk, her neighbors still consulted her.

Kalinga leaders said in a statement that Mercy’s death is a great loss to the women’s movement adding that she is not the first woman victim of senseless violence in this province.

Local folk here say that the Dacalan tribe claimed the massacre when it sent P15, 000 as a papod (fine) to the Lubuagan Proper tribe to whom Cadater belonged. Tribal traditions in Kalinga allow blood revenge, but Tabuk folk are hopeful that tribal conflicts may be resolved peacefully. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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