Luisita Survivors: Ombudsman’s Biggest
Group of Complainants
The Office of the
Ombudsman has now the biggest number of complainants since it was formed
during the last years of martial law: 52 farmers, survivors and relatives
of seven victims in the Nov. 16 Hacienda Luisita massacre.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
IN
FULL FORCE:
Hacienda Luisita
Massacre survivors
file charges against
the Cojuangcos, the labor secretary, and police
and military officials.
Photo by Dabet Castañeda |
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The Office of the
Ombudsman has now the biggest number of complainants since it was formed
during the last years of martial law.
On Jan. 13, 52
farmers, survivors and relatives of seven victims in the Nov. 16 massacre
at Hacienda Luisida in Tarlac filed criminal and administrative charges
against the owners and managers of the hacienda and the sugar central,
police and military officers and labor officials. Thirty-two of the
complainants trooped to the Ombudsman on Agham Road, Quezon City.
One of them was
Maribel Valdez, 26. Valdez, who is pregnant, looked pensive as she joined
a march along Quezon Avenue in Quezon City on the way to the Office of the
Ombudsman. She is to deliver her fourth child at the end of this month but
the expectant mother was anything but excited.
“Ipapanganak siya
ng walang ama” (The baby will be born without a father) said Valdez as
she took off a little white dress she wrapped around her head. The baby’s
father, Jessie, a sugar farm worker for 15 years, was one of the seven
killed last Nov. 16 when police and military forces attacked the picket
line of sugar farm and mill workers at Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac (120 kms
north of Manila).
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WIDOWS OF LUISITA: Fe David and 9-month old pregnant Maribel Valdez.
Photo by Dabet Castañeda |
Together with 31
other complainants and about 200 sugar farm and mill workers, Valdez
trooped to the Ombudsman that day, nearly two months after the carnage
that killed her husband, to file criminal and administrative charges
against the owners and managers of the hacienda and the sugar central,
police and military officers and labor officials.
Valdez is not alone.
She and her children join hundreds of peasant families widowed by state
repression as brute force is used to answer their demand for land.
Offensive, premeditated
In the Senate hearing
last Jan. 12, Dr. Gene Nisperos of the Health Alliance for Democracy
(HEAD) presented before the Committee on Labor chaired by Sen. Jinggoy
Estrada the findings of an independent investigation into the Nov. 16
massacre.
Contrary to the
military’s claim that the violence at the picket line occurred because the
soldiers and policemen were provoked and that the series of gunfire was
done in defense, the medical findings showed an actual armed assault on
the strikers and an excessive use of force that had a clear intent to
cause harm.
Nisperos said that of
the 10 accumulated gunshot wounds sustained by the seven who died, only
two were frontal – Jesus Laza’s two gunshot wounds on his chest. A witness
interviewed by Bulatlat one week after the massacre narrated that
Laza was throwing stones at the military in self-defense when he was shot.
All other entry
wounds were either from the back or from the side.
If the strikers were
on an offensive, Nisperos argued, they could have sustained frontal
gunshot wounds. That the wounds of the majority of the victims had entry
points at the back and side meant that they were already scampering for
safety when they were shot, he said.
Ricardo Tacusalme Jr.,
30, in his affidavit, stated that “Tumatakbo na kami ay binabaril pa
rin kami.” (We were already running but we were still being shot.)
Actual video footages
of the incident showed that the first volley of fire lasted for about 30
seconds but the whole shooting lasted for about two minutes. “Doon sa
sunod-sunod na putok maraming nasaktan” (It was in the series of
gunfire that many were injured), the doctor said.
The medical team also
found that before the shooting at around 9 a.m. on Nov. 16, the St. Martin
de Porres Hospital (some 200 meters away from the CAT main gate) was
“cleared” and its patients were transferred to other hospitals outside the
hacienda.
Two hours before the
shooting, Nisperos said, army personnel arrived and manned the hospital.
“This would give an inkling that there was some degree of premeditation to
the extent of the violence that occurred later on because they (the
Cojuangcos who also owned the hospital) cleared the hospital readily,” he
said.
Erroneous report
Meanwhile, the
Provincial Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of the Provincial Health
Office (PHO) of Tarlac said that only five of the seven bodies died of
gunshot wounds. Juancho Sanchez suffered severe head injury while Laza
died of basal skull fracture, the PHO unit reported.
However, the HEAD
report said that all seven died of gunshot wounds. Nisperos explained that
they could have suffered other injuries prior to death but still died of
gunshot wounds.
It is not clear where
the PHO based its report, Nisperos said, but even the PHO and the PNP
Crime Laboratory had conflicting reports. While the PHO stated that Laza
had died of basal skull fracture, the PNP Crime Laboratory stated that the
same victim had no head and neck injuries.
Sen. Jamby Madrigal,
a member of the Senate labor committee who also attended the hearing,
expressed disgust over the seemingly erroneous report submitted by the PHO.
“There seems to be falsification and perjury of the documents,” she said.
If it is true that the reports were altered, she feared that there is
going to be a whitewash in the investigation.
After hearing the
medical findings of Nisperos’ group, Madrigal said the facts of the case
showed that the assault at the picket line was “an act of violence and no
longer an act of defense.”
The PHO report was
submitted by Cecille Lopez, Aurora Somintac, Erenita Estavillo, Wilfredo
Serrano and Jesus Candelaria to the Department of Health last Nov. 19.
Lopez and Estavillo are registered nurses while Somintac is a medical
doctor.
Five casualties were
autopsied by Dr. Saturnino Ferrer, Tarlac municipal health officer while
the other two were autopsied by Dr. Reynaldo Ardy, Jr. of the PNP Crime
Laboratory.
Conspiracy
In his affidavit,
Rene Galang, president of the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU),
described the Nov. 16 massacre as a conspiracy among the Cojuangco clan,
Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, officers and members of the
Philippine National Police (PNP) -Region 3 and the Armed Forces of the
Philippines-Northern Luzon Command (AFP-NOLCOM).
At the Office of the
Ombudsman, 32 out of the 52 complainants filed criminal charges against
the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. including Don Pedro Cojuangco, Jose “Peping”
Cojuangco, Jr. and Ricardo Lopa. Also charged were Jose Manuel Lopa,
resident manager of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) and Ernesto
Teopaco, chief negotiator in the collective bargaining agreement of both
the sugar mill and the plantation.
Sto. Tomas was
implicated for issuing an Assumption of Jurisdiction (AJ) and
“deputization order” to the NOLCOM while Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson
was charged for issuing a “deputization order” to the PNP-Region 3. DoLE
sheriff Francis Reyes was charged for serving the AJ.
Police officers
charged were led by Chief Supt. Quirino dela Torre, director of PNP-Region
3, and Sr. Supt. Angelo Sunglao, PNP-Tarlac provincial director and ground
commander during the massacre. Military officials charged included Maj.
Gen. Romeo Dominguez, commanding officer of the NOLCOM.
Criminal charges
filed were multiple murder for the death of Jhavie Basilio, 20; Juancho
Sanchez, 20; Jessie Valdez, 30; Jaime Fastidio, 46; Jesus Laza, 34; June
David, 28; and Adriano Caballero Jr., 23.
Multiple frustrated
murder, multiple attempted murder, serious and less serious physical
injuries were filed for the wounding of at least 72 individuals, 27 of
whom sustained gunshot wounds.
They were also
charged with theft and malicious mischief for stealing mobile phones,
kitchenware and sacks of rice, among others.
Administrative
charges of grave abuse of authority and conduct unbecoming of a public
official were filed against the labor officials, the police and military
officers and personnel and Rep. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III (2nd
district, Tarlac) who was implicated in another shooting incident that
occurred in the hacienda last Jan. 5. He is a son of former President
Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino.
Marilyn Galvez, one
of the Ombudsman directors who facilitated the filing of the case, said
that the number of complainants in this case is the biggest so far in the
history of the Ombudsman.
Massacres revisited
Tales of massacre of
peasant families and communities are nothing new.
The most infamous
mass murder of peasants in contemporary Philippine history occurred on
Jan. 22, 1987 when thousands joined a rally at Mendiola to call for
genuine agrarian reform. Called the Mendiola Massacre, 13 farmers were
killed on the foot of Mendiola Bridge just outside the gates of Malacañang
Palace. Six others reportedly died in the hospital. They were demanding
President Aquino to fulfill her promise to initiate genuine agrarian
reform.
Two years before
that, 20 sugar cane farmers were killed in Escalante, Negros while 30
others were wounded in what is also known as “Bloody Thursday.” The
farmers were staging a protest in commemoration of the 13th
anniversary of martial law.
The other mass
executions were results of counter-insurgency operations by the military.
On Sept. 15, 1981, the howling of a Special Forces-Integrated Civilian
Home Defense Forces (SF-ICHDF) team awakened a community of farmers in
Sag-od, an interior village in Las Navas,
Northern Samar.
In the middle of the night they were assembled for a meeting. Little did
they know it was the last they will see of each other. The men were
separated from the women and children. The first volley of gunfire was
directed toward the men. Later, the women and children, mostly infants and
toddlers, were also slaughtered. The number of fatalities remains unknown.
On Feb. 10, 1987,
just three weeks after the carnage in Mendiola, soldiers from the 15th
Infantry Battalion (IB) of the AFP killed 17 farmers including children
and the elderly in Lupao, Nueva Ecija.
Four members of a
Mangyan (the indigenous people’s tribe in the twin-province of Mindoro)
family were butchered on July 23,
2003 by soldiers from the 16th IB.
In the three
instances, the military alleged that the victims were caught in crossfire
between them and the New People’s Army guerillas.
Peasant organizers
have also become targets of brutality. In 1981, four members of the
preparatory committee of the Alliance of Central Luzon Farmers (ACLF) were
murdered in Barangay (village) Moronquillo, San Rafael, Bulacan. The ACLF
is known today as the Alyansa ng mga Mabubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL or
Alliance of Farmers in Central Luzon).
On April 21, 2003,
peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy was murdered in Mindoro Oriental while
conducting a fact-finding mission on alleged military atrocities in the
area. He was killed together with human rights worker Eden Marcellana.
Indeed, the hands
that till the land and feed the nation are also the same hands that are
tied to feudal bondage. And until genuine agrarian reform remains elusive,
justice for those killed will remain similarly elusive. Bulatlat
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