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Itogon activist: next death squad target?

BAGUIO CITY (May 28) — As the 124th political activist to die in the hands of GMA’s death squads was laid to rest yesterday, local people’s organizations in the Cordillera fear that the next target is another peasant leader, Virgilio Aniceto of Itogon, Benguet.

Jose Doton, Chair of the anti-dam alliance Timmawa (Tignay dagiti Mannalon a Mangwayawaya iti Agno or Peasant Movement to Free the Agno) was killed between 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on May 16, some two kilometers from his house in San Nicolas, Pangasinan.

Like Doton, Aniceto is a peasant leader of Apit Tako (Alyansa dagiti Pesante iti Taéng Kordilyera or Alliance of Peasants in the Cordillera Homeland, a local chapter of the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) or Peasant Movement of the Philippines. Like many recent victims of political assassination, Aniceto is a pastor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP).

In recent weeks, reports gathered showed that three men, one boarding the jeepney with him everytime he heads home, and two following the jeepney on a motorcycle, also of the racer type, which Doton’s killers rode, have tailed Aniceto.

In Ucab, in Itogon, Benguet where Aniceto lives, at least two other men asked residents about his routine. There is no real pattern, though and his neighbors refuse to cooperate with the probe.

On 10 May, two men accosted and restrained a seven-year daughter of Fernando Mangili, Apit Tako Secretary-General and Aniceto’s neighbour in Ucab Proper. For the third instance they asked her about Aniceto and her father and showed her their picture with the word “WANTED”. She bit the hand that gripped her, broke free, and reported the incident to elders.

Mangili, is Cordillera Peoples Alliance’s (CPA) 1st vice-chair. His name, and that of Apit Tako Chair Julian Gayumba, appeared on a death squad hitlist that the CPA exposed in February.

Others identified in the said hitlist are Joan Carling, CPA chairperson; Windel Bolinget, CPA secretary- general; Manuel Loste, Bayan Muna-Cordillera coordinator; Jose Cawiding, Bayan Muna-Cordillera staff, and Xavier Akien, secretary-general of the Mankayan-Quirino-Tadian-Cervantes Danggayan a Gunglo (Maquitacdg). The Maquitacdg is an inter-municipality alliance protesting the mining activities of Lepanto Mining in Mankayan.

Apit Tako secretariat reportedly arranged for Mangili and Gayumba to work in other Cordillera provinces to secure their leaders. Since then, suspicious-looking men prowl around Ucab Proper, a tightly knit neighbourhood, and pursued Aniceto instead.

Aniceto and Mangili both figured prominently Ucab people struggle in the early 1990s to defend their ancestral villages against the expansion of Benguet Corporation’s open-pit mining in Itogon. Both were among the leaders of the Itogon people’s more recent effort to save their ancestral domains from the impact of the San Roque Dam. Both now play key roles in CPA’s ongoing campaign preventing Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s plan allowing trans-national giants to seize control of gold-rich lands throughout the Cordillera and other mining areas.

“We know that the killings are aimed at depriving us of leaders – and particularly of spokespeople – valuable to the campaigns we have been waging in advancing the national and democratic interests of the Filipino people. We know that the strategy of targeting local leaders and situating the killings in or near these leaders’ homes is meant to sow fear into the hearts of the communities that are our national democratic movement’s mass base,” Apit Tako said in its statement last week. # via NORDIS

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