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Hitmen stalk Cordillera peasant leader

BAGUIO CITY (June 17) — Alyansa dagiti Peasante iti Taeng Kordilyera (Apit Tako), the Cordillera regional chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) urged all Cordillerans to join progressive organizations in exposing and opposing the escalating extra-judicial executions to prevent the assassination of Apit Tako Chair Julian Gayumba, 64, possibly the next target of political killing as sinister-looking armed men frequently seen asking around for him.

Apit Tako reported that Gayumba left his wife and children in Guinaoang, Mankayan, Benguet after hearing that he was among those named in an Oplan Bantay-Laya hitlist which the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) had earlier denounced. He is now in Alab, Bontoc, Mt. Province, the village of his ancestors, trying to earn as a small-scale miner.

Apit Tako added that sinister-looking men show up regularly at a sari-sari store along the Bontoc road, asking if Gayumba is in the village.

Alab folk observed that the men come in a van and a motorbike with no license plates. They stay at the bridge and stare at the village for hours each time. They are armed and wear kevlar vests. However, they have not attempted to enter Alab Proper, where Julian is living.

Alab is among the Chico river communities that gained a reputation for tribal militancy during the Marcos dictatorship. It actively participated in the popular armed struggle against the said dictatorship’s World Bank-funded project to build a series of mega dams on the Chico River and its tributaries.

Moreover, sinister-looking men had been also asking about him at the places he frequented when he was still in Guinaoang, such as the market in Abatan, Buguias and the Vegetable Trading Post in La Trinidad, both in Benguet.

Mankayan residents also observed that strangers kept turning up in Guinaoang, searching for him. One arrived at the doorsteps of Julian’s residence carrying firewood - peculiar in a barrio where no household used firewood any longer because all had converted to the use of LPG as kitchen fuel. The other strangers raked through the area on motorbikes.

In March, the strangers combed Guinaoang on foot, asking barrio folk if they had seen Julian and showing them a photo of him. “This man in the picture is NPA,” they would say to some of the people; to others, “This man feeds the NPA.”

The following month, the kevlar-vested armed men first appeared in the bridge to Alab. In May, they started their bridge-and-village watch that would last up to the present.

Gayumba’s kin in Alab monitor these men’s movements. “They know that to the men, Gayumba is an important target because he has been playing a key role in campaigns against the anti-people policies and programs of the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration,” Apit Tako said.

Aside from chairing Apit Tako, Gayumba represents the Cordillera’s vegetable farmers in PUMALAG, the network campaigning against the liberalization of the Philippine agricultural market under the regime of the World Trade Organization. He also heads Macquitacdeg, the alliance of communities who have taken a militant stand against the usurpation and destruction of their lands by the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company.

Regional leaders who also play prominent roles in local mass struggles have been the targets of Oplan Bantay-Laya death squads in recent months. On June 8, Markus Bangit of Tomiangan, Tabuk, Kalinga, a leader from another Chico valley community was killed in Isabela. # via NORDIS

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