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Motoring duo slays Pangasinan peasant

SAN NICOLAS, Pangasinan (May 17) — Two helmeted motorcycle riding gunmen may not be the same duo that has been killing political activists and journalists critical of the government, but by the description of the assailants that killed Pangasinan peasant leader Jose Doton, 61, the duo did it again.

The assailants are between 20-25 years old, clad in the usual helmet motorcyclists wear to protect their heads. As in most killings of other politically critical individuals, especially activists, the motorbike was a new model yet “for registration” that no plate numbers were noted by witnesses.

Doton’s assassination may have been the result of a long-planned attack. Witnesses say that several weeks before the fatal attack on him, Doton has noticed strange men trying to plot his routine.

“Kunana nga agannad kami kadagiti aggatgatang ti bote-garapa ken dagit aglaklako ti alahas nga um-umay ta nakita na a kasla militarda. (He told us to be wary of those buying scrap bottles and those selling pieces of jewelry because they look like they are military), Dominga, 62, his wife told Nordis during the wake.

Similarly, Doton’s neighbors in Brgy. Cabuloan here, noticed motorcycle-riding men appearing to be waiting for somebody in a house near one of his fields. “Umayda ti ag-agsapa ket mamalemanda pay,” (They come early n the morning and stay up to late in the afternoon) a farmer recalled.

Political involvement

Like any other political activists, Doton, according to his neighbors, has no known enemy in the barangay (village). Apart from being the chairperson of the movement of Pangasinan and Benguet peasants Tignay dagiti Mannalon a Mangwaya-waya ti Agno (Timmawa), which campaigned against the building of Asia’s largest multi-purpose dam, San Roque Dam, Doton is also secretary-general of Bayan-Pangasinan and chair of the local Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).

Doton also led the San Nicolas farmers’ federation and was an active irrigator (pasayak holder) in the barangay. As a barangay treasurer, he was following up the local officials’ honorarium shortly before he was gunned down on May 16.

Doton and his younger brother Cancio,57, also rode a motorcycle when a speeding red Yamaha XRN without a registration plate chased them along Anong Road in Brgy. Camangaan in San Nicolas town. Six shots startled peasants who have just harvested mung beans in nearby fields. Slugs from a .45 caliber pistol were later recovered by responding policemen.

Eulogy

Doton is now in the long list of Filipino martyrs assassinated under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration, Santos Mero, his colleague from Itogon said in his eulogy as he enumerated many more killed activists in Northern Luzon under a similar circumstance.

Norma Mooy, also from Itogon and Timmawa’s Vice-chairperson, said that peasants in both Benguet and Pangasinan provinces would not forget Doton’s contribution to the anti-San Roque Dam struggle.

The human rights watchdog Karapatan claims that since 2001 up to April this year, the Arroyo government has claimed 585 lives, making it the worst manmade disaster, according to Bayan national secretary-general Renato Reyes, Jr.

“It s incredibly idiotic to blame Communist Party of the Philippines purges for these deaths, and ridiculous to deny the pattern in the killings of activists,” Reyes said, as he called that all freedom-loving Filipinos to rise and condemn the rampage of death.

Attempt vs. people’s movement

Meanwhile, different groups condemned Doton’s murder. Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), with which Timmawa works closely, in a statement, said that Doton’s death only proves the GMA regime’s plot to terrorize and destroy the people’s movement through its Oplan Bantay Laya. It exposes the desperation of the crumbling GMA government to prevail in power, CPA said.

CPA also alerted the media and the public over the on-going harassment and surveillance against activists in the Cordillera, the latest of which is the blatant stalking of Virgilio Aniceto, Bayan Muna chair in Itogon and Apit Tako’s spokesperson. Aniceto is among Timmawa’s council of elders.

Innabuyog-Gabriela noted how widows suffer when their husbands are killed. The Arroyo government has distanced itself from the Filipino women and people, the regional women’s alliance said in its statement, adding that it is “abhorrent to watch another leader fall from the bullets of coward state agents aboard a motorcycle”.

Abroad, the Filipino group Bayan USA lambasted the Arroyo government for sanctioning the recent killing spree of at least five activists last week in Central Luzon. Rachel Redondiez, secretary-general of Bayan USA said Filipinos in the US realize that the killing spree is a direct result of GMA’s agenda to silence genuine patriots and nationalists who counter her subservience to the dictates of US political, economic and military intervention.

Redondiez noted that millions of Filipinos have been pushed to migrate because of economic and political crisis brought on by US-supported regimes like that of Marcos. GMA’s appetite for bloodshed is surpassing even the infamy of the Martial Law under Marcos, Redondiez added.

Doton’s brother Cancio, 57, who was driving the motorbike he rode, sustained two gunshot wounds and is critical at a local clinic. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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