NPA admits to killing of army sergeant
By Al Jacinto
The Manila Times – www.manilatimes.net
Thursday, 15 April 2010
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Communist rebels on Wednesday owned up to the killing of a soldier in southern Philippine province of Compostela Valley, a spokesman for the New People’s Army (NPA) said.
Marcella Valiente, of the NPA’s Armando Dumandan Command, said rebels killed Army Sgt. Marlon Salva over the weekend after trying to evade arrest in the village of Kamantangan in Montevista town.
“Sgt. Salva, a military intelligence operative and also a detachment commander of the 72nd Infantry Battalion was killed after he tried to evade arrest and gave battle to a New People’s Army team tasked to apprehend him,” Valiente said.
The Army’s 10th Infantry Division condemned the killing and insisted Salva was unarmed and on his way to meet with village leaders.
Valiente denied the military report. “As Sgt. Salva approached the checkpoint, the NPA team manning the roadblock flagged him down. But instead of heeding the order to stop, he sped away and drew his firearm in an attempt to shoot it out with the NPA team. Sgt. Salva’s hostile action forced the NPA blocking force to fire on him leading to his death,” the rebel spokesman said.
Valiente said rebels recovered the soldier’s two .45-caliber pistols and several identification cards and mission orders signed by Capt. Glenn Loreto Caballero, of the Army’s 103rd Military Intelligence Company.
“The document from the intelligence units of the 10th Infantry Division seized on Sgt. Salva’s person confirms that he is not simply an ordinary detachment commander, but also an active intelligence operative. He was actively involved in combat and intelligence operations with the Third Special Forces Battalion-Eastern Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. It was due to his active involvement in armed counter-revolutionary acts that revolutionary authorities have ordered his arrest,” Valiente said.
The NPA is the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which is waging a secessionist war the past decades.
Ampatuan militiamen continue shellings
By John Unson
The Philippine Star – www.philstar.com
Thursday, April 15, 2010
AMPATUAN, Maguindanao , Philippines – Suspected members of the private militia of the Ampatuan clan shelled the surroundings of this town’s police station and a detachment of the Army’s 45th Infantry Battalion Tuesday night.
Although no one was killed or wounded in the shelling, the seventh in the past 10 days, the attack forced more residents at the town proper to flee their homes.
Superintendent Alex Lineses, Maguindanao police director, said the attackers would crawl into strategic areas around the town proper, fire their grenade launchers, and then escape to nearby hinterlands.
“They don’t care if they hit their targets or not. It’s very obvious they want to scare the people in the municipality,” Lineses said.
Some of the 50 shoulder-fired rockets and 40-mm grenade projectiles landed near the houses of Mayor Zacaria Sangki and his son, Razul, the vice mayor, who is a key prosecution witness against the Ampatuans in the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people in Barangay Salman this town.
Lineses said investigators are convinced that the attackers were the same ones behind last month’s foiled bombing of a gasoline station owned by the Sangki family.
“They also obviously want to scare registered voters residing in the town proper to unduly disenfranchise them,” Lineses said without elaborating.
There is talk that Tuesday night’s attack could be in retaliation for the arrest the day before of a member of the Ampatuan militia implicated in the massacre.
The suspect, Manaot Dumlah, was cornered after two months of surveillance at his hideout in Barangay Meta, Datu Unsay town.
Dumlah is a known henchman of Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect in the massacre.
Dumlah was the known keeper of the ammunition for the firearms of militiamen employed by Ampatuan Jr. before he was detained at the central office of the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila.
Rights groups say Army running amuck
Philippine Daily Inquirer – www.inquirer.net
Thursday, April 15, 2010
CITY OF SAN FERNANdo—The military and the police in Central Luzon have “run amuck,” using every means to destroy evidence as they work to end insurgency by June 30, human rights advocates said here on Wednesday.
“They’re running amuck to beat the deadline set by President Macapagal-Arroyo,” said Aurora Broquil, chair of the Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD) in the region.
Civilians, more than armed combatants, suffered in the anticommunist campaign, according to Max de Mesa, chair of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (Pahra).
In a report to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the KPD recorded 52 victims from three cases of extrajudicial killings and attempted killings, five cases of harassment, three abductions and enforced disappearances, illegal search and arrest, and forced fake surrenders in Pampanga, Bataan and Zambales.
Lawyer Jasmin Regino, chair of the regional CHR, said the KPD report is being validated while some of the cases have been investigated.
AFP doubts data
Lt. Gen. Ricardo David, chief of the military’s Northern Luzon Command, expressed doubt on KPD’s data.
“I have spoken to all commanders in my area and it was our commitment to always observe human rights. Our legitimate engagements or encounters should not be considered violations,” David told the Inquirer.
Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta, head of Army units in the three provinces, said the “Left have been devastated because of recent government accomplishments.” “These allegations are meant to divert and distract public perception,” he said.
Chief Supt. Arturo Cacdac, chief of the Central Luzon police, did not reply when sought for reaction.
Broquil said perpetrators have become bolder, doing the abductions “in broad daylight or late into the night,” mostly in the homes of victims and in the presence of their relatives.
Pattern of denial
She said police have “failed to do due diligence” by not recording the cases, investigating these or bringing the violators behind bars.
Army units assigned to the three provinces have resorted to a “pattern of denial,” she said.
“Only the CHR has been doing the investigation,” she added.
De Mesa said the practice of burning bodies or stealing them when these are used as evidence was common. He cited the cases of Alberto Ocampo and Jose Gonzales of Bataan. A witness saw about 10 policemen execute the two men in April last year, he said.
On Nov. 11, two months before the CHR-approved exhumation, the bodies were stolen, he said.
Because laws were not upheld, human rights violations have increasingly become “concerns of civilian authority,” he said.
“We’re no different from the military junta of Burma,” he said. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon
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