Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume IV, Number 6 March 7 - 13, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
TruthCom
Finds Top Defense, AFP Officials not Clean of Mindanao Bombings The
hands of former Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and former military intelligence
chief Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus are not clean of the bombings in Mindanao,
contends the Mindanao Truth Commission (MTC), a citizens’ probe body looking
into the bombings in Mindanao. The MTC issued its preliminary report last week
after 10 months of investigation. By
Alexander Martin Remollino Members of the Mindanao Truth Commission take their oath as its first fact finding session commences in Cagayan de Oro City (left). A survivor of the April 2, 2003 Sasa wharf bombing narrates his ordeal before the commission (right). The
hands of former Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and former military intelligence
chief Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus are not clean of the bombings in Mindanao. This
is the contention of the Mindanao Truth Commission (MTC), a citizens’ probe
body organized by the Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao (InPeace Mindanao) to
investigate the bombings that have occurred in Mindanao under the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration. The
MTC, composed mostly of lawyers and church leaders, released an abridged report
on its findings in a forum held last March 4 at the La Salle Greenhills School. The
names of Reyes and Corpus had been dragged into the issue on July 27, 2003 in
the midst of an armed protest action at the Oakwood Hotel in Makati City by 300
soldiers, including 70 junior officers, belonging to the “Magdalo Group.” In
a videotape released by the protesting soldiers to the media, Army Capt. Gerardo
Gambala, valedictorian of Philippine Military Academy Class 1995 and one of the
soldier-protesters’ leaders, read a statement pointing to Reyes and Corpus as
the masterminds of the Davao bombings in March and April last year, allegedly
orchestrated to cause the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to be branded as
a “terrorist” group and justify the military’s acquisition of additional
anti-“terrorist” funds from the United States. The
MTC reports that a total of 33 bombings have taken place in Mindanao under
Macapagal-Arroyo’s watch. These killed 95 persons and injured 490 others. Not
one of these cases has been solved, the MTC report notes. Lawyer
Beverly Selim-Musni, MTC convenor, noted in an interview with Bulatlat.com:
“It is interesting that these bombings have always occurred at around the same
time that the government was trying to justify the presence of U.S. military
forces in the country.” Reyes
and Corpus, together with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, have been among the
most active proponents of U.S.-Philippine military “exercises,” which they
say are being conducted as part of an anti-“terrorist” campaign. Maestrecampo
claim The
MTC, in its findings, took account of the claim of Army Capt. Milo Maestrecampo,
who alleged that he was instructed by his superior, Maj. Rene Paje, to form a
special operations group that would lob grenades at mosques in Davao City.
Maestrecampo said that he argued against it and Paje was forced to look for
another person for the job.
Even
as the MTC criticizes the Maniwang Commission for clearing Reyes and Corpus
without conducting a probe thorough enough, it notes that Paje’s testimony
before the latter group, that he gave instructions on the formation of a special
operations group, already corroborates part of Maestrecampo’s claim. “The
Truth Commission finds probative weight and substantial evidence in Capt. Milo
Maestrecampo’s claim that the Scout Ranger battalion commander Maj. Rene Paje
ordered him and two other junior military officers to lob grenades at mosques in
Davao City,” Musni said in the March 4 forum. “We strongly believe that
Major Paje is a key link to the possible involvement of former secretary Angelo
Reyes and Gen. Victor Corpus in the Davao bombings, because special orders go
all the way up to the highest authority in the defense department and even up to
Malacañang. This makes it highly probable that the Davao bombings and
retaliatory actions on mosques were scenarios conjured by officials of the
Macapagal-Arroyo administration.” Historically,
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has been suspected by critics of
orchestrating bombings and other violent incidents to justify certain repressive
or armed actions. It is suspected, for instance, of masterminding the bombing of
Plaza Miranda and the ambush of then-Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile in 1972
to justify a declaration of martial law. In the 1986 Edsa I revolt, Enrile
admitted that it was the Marcos government that staged his ambush. Reyes-Corpus
exoneration In
section 4.A.2 of its abridged progress report, the MTC states: “The
Commission...takes notice that even prior to the start of formal hearings of the
Maniwang Commission, both former Sec. Angelo Reyes and Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus
were ‘re-appointed’ to government positions—Reyes as
“ambassador-at-large for counter-terrorism’ and Corpus as head of the
AFP’s Civil Relations Group.” The
re-appointment of Reyes and Corpus came a few weeks after both were forced to
resign from their respective positions, amid a wave of public outrage following
the Magdalo expose. In
section 4.B.1 of the same report, the MTC also notes: “In relation to the
Davao International Airport bombing which occurred 5:15 p.m. of March 4, the
State cannot fully account for the suspiciously hasty...clean-up of the scene of
the crime early morning of March 5, 2003 before the arrival of President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, in clear violation of preserving the body of the crime (corpus
delicti) upon which any criminal case hinges and proceeds and which raises
serious questions on the identity of the perpetrators.” According to Musni, the Maniwang Commission’s investigation was “flawed from the start on three counts.” Musni said that aside from the fact that, as previously mentioned, Reyes and Corpus were re-appointed even before any investigation could begin, the Maniwang Commission’s integrity became dubious with the appointment of Justice Undersecretary Jose Calida (who was later replaced by Ramon Liwag) as a member of its panel, and it failed to hear the side of the Magdalo group, relying only on the testimonies of government officials. The
Department of Justice had been instructed to prosecute the MILF as a suspect in
the Davao bombings. “It
is not at all surprising that the Maniwang Commission exonerated Reyes and
Corpus, since the principal suspect in this case is the Philippine state which
is vested with all the powers to suppress evidence and clear its name at all
cost,” said Musni. “It confirms our suspicion that the Commission was
created purposely to exonerate them.” Human
rights violations Jehjohn
Macalintal, 19, was one of several persons arrested in connection with the
Mindanao bombings. In the March 4 forum, he related that he was detained and
tortured for 11 months as a suspect in the bombing of Fitmart, a shopping center
in General Santos City, two years ago. “They
(authorities) should not accuse us who are innocent, while those who are truly
behind these are freely going about with their crime,” Macalintal said. The
MTC argues that: “The state is culpable for massive violations of human rights in Mindanao partially (amounting to) 780 cases against 57,683
individuals. This figure does not include, however, the more than 400,000 Moro(s)
and Christians, mostly women and children, who were victims of forced evacuation
at the height of the government’s all-out offensive in Moro-dominated
territories. The figure also excludes human rights violation cases documented in
Basilan and Sulu. Based
on the MTC report, Muslim communities in Mindanao have been victimized by
illegal arrests, searches and raids, abductions and forced disappearances, and
profiling and racial discrimination in relation to the Arroyo government’s
supposed offensive against Islamic “terrorism.” The
MTC is expected to release a more comprehensive report on human rights and
international humanitarian law violations in Mindanao at a later date. It
recommends the indemnification and rehabilitation of the victims of the bombings
and those unjustly charged and detained, as well as their families;
investigations by the Philippine Congress and international human rights bodies;
the filing of criminal, civil and administrative charges against Maj. Rene Paje
and other junior or senior officers and civilians appearing to be involved in or
responsible for the bombings and the arrests and detention of innocent
civilians; and the filing of criminal, civil, and administrative charges against
state agencies and agents found to have committed violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law before national and international bodies. The
MTC The
MTC was formed by InPeace Mindanao, a broad coalition of Mindanao peace
advocates from the church as well as non-government and people’s
organizations, after a peace conference held in Cagayan de Oro City on May 13
and 14 last year. The conference was held as a response to the Davao bombings. The
MTC is led by Bp. Felixberto Calang, lawyers Beverly Selim-Musni and Jose Zafra,
Fr. Bienvenido Trinilla, and Sr. Noemi Degala. According to Musni, the MTC conducted its investigations in the form of conferences, to which people with relevant information on the Mindanao bombings were invited to give testimonies. Bulatlat.com Photos courtesy of Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao We want to know what you think of this article.
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