Rights group hits Año's red-tagging of slain Rizal farmers
MANILA, Philippines — Interior Secretary Eduardo Año is actively red-tagging five farmhands who were killed by state forces in Rizal in order to justify their murders, a local rights monitor said Wednesday.
This comes after Año's Department of the Interior and Local Government issued a statement Tuesday claiming that combined forces of the national police and the military successfully eliminated five members of the New People's Army who "were responsible for various extortion and terroristic activities victimizing local government officials, businessmen, and ordinary individuals."
Año, a member of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, has routinely defended the red-tagging of government critics such as activists and even registered lawmakers in the House of Representatives. The NTF-ELCAC is the government's anti-communist task force, which has been the source of disinformation against government critics over the coronavirus pandemic, having been caught in a lie more than once.
READ: Rizal clash fatalities part of NPA hit squad – Año
“We can now confirm that the five NPA members killed in Barangay San Juan, Baras, Rizal were part of a death squad that was supposed to carry out the directive of Joma Sison to assassinate government and civilian leaders,” he said then, adding that the PNP and AFP forces were there to issue a warrant of arrest for frustrated murder when the five suddenly opened fire on them.
The former military general claimed he was also among the NPA's targets, calling on the Commission on Human Rights and the Makabayan bloc in Congress to condemn the deployment of so-called death squads "to prove that they are truly not members or fronts of the Communist Party" which sought to overthrow what he said was "one of the most popular governments in the world."
“The police and military mercilessly killed five farmworkers mere days before Christmas — and now, Año is concocting more outrageous lies to justify what is clearly a brutal massacre of civilians as well as the military’s continued desecration of their remains and the harassment of their grieving families,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said in a statement.
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Land defenders, along with journalists and legal practitioners, are among the many groups that have seen a sharp rise in attacks during the Duterte administration. According to independent watchdog Global Witness, the Philippines has already surpassed Brazil as the most dangerous country in the world for people defending their land and the environment.
The government has routinely denied allegations of harassment and abuse, calling them either part of a propaganda campaign to discredit the government or acts by communist rebels against civilians.
'Fact-finding mission'
According to Karapatan's Southern Tagalog chapter, combined elements of the Police Regional Office 4A and the Armed Forces of the Philippines’s 2nd Infantry Division on Dec. 17, 2020 murdered five farmers in Sitio Malalim, Brgy. San Juan, Baras, Rizal as they were supposedly serving arrest warrants against NPA rebels in the area.
The results of a fact-finding mission spearheaded by the group identified the victims as Vilma Salabao, Wesley Obmerga, Carlito Zonio, Jhonatan and Niño Alberga according morgue records, all of whom were caretakers and workers at a private mango farm in the barangay according to the rights monitor.
But the interior chief in his statement identified those killed as "a woman known as alias Sandra, a Rebolusyonaryong Buwis sa Kaaway na Uri (RBKU) staff and wife of alias Luis, Secretary of Guerilla Front Cesar; and an alias Onli, regional intelligence officer who were actively generating funds for the communist terrorist group."
Karapatan added that the fact-finding team also interviewed residents in the area who reported hearing "cries for help when the five were supposedly engaging in a shootout with the police and military"—contradicting government claims of an armed encounter taking place between the two sides.
"The residents who knew the victims were also surprised at the police and military accusation that the five farmworkers were NPA rebels. Families and relatives of the victims have been able to claim the remains of Obmerga, Zonio, Alberga, and Alberga but the Baras Municipal Police Station has refused to release Salbao’s remains to her family. The remains of the victims bore signs of torture and mutilation; the Alberga brothers’ scrota were burnt, four teeth were removed, and their hand were pounded and beaten up," Karapatan said.
READ: CHR launches probe into killings of Tumandok leaders in Panay raids | Groups say Tumandok land defenders arrested, at least one killed, in Capiz
Towards the end of the year, peasant and environmental groups also reported the arrests and subsequent killings of at least seven indigenous Tumandok land defenders as part of combined military-police operations in Western Visayas.
"Accounts from the people in the barangay themselves and the signs of mutilation in their bodies clearly disprove Año’s wild and delusional assertions. These are the same lies that the military and police have parroted to justify the mass murder of nine Tumandok leaders in Tapaz, Capiz on December 30, 2020," Palabay also said.
— Franco Luna
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