‘They’re supposed to be our protectors’ When the state is the terrorist

By Phoebe Zoe Sanchez, Jamir Niño Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Last updated 03:36am (Mla time) 02/19/2007

(First of two parts)

(Editor’s note: Sanchez is assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas working on her Ph.D. in Sociology; Ocampo is with the UP School of Economics. The two were invited by Taripnon, an ecology group in the Cagayan Valley, to study the impact of a military presence as a form of terrorism. Following is their report.)

“Palpasin niyo da kame uray ku pinatay yu diay maymaysak nga baru (Better still, kill us all. You have just killed my only son!),” the old man cried in anguish as he cradled his dying son Nelson Asucena in his arms.

Bleeding from M16 and M14 bullet wounds, Nelson made his last wish for his father Hipolito to take care of his family -- his wife Marifel and 3-year-old daughter Lyka.

Asucena, 19, Sangguniang Kabataan (youth council) chair of Barangay San Juan, Zinundungan Valley, thus became the 821st victim of extrajudicial killings, according to Karapatan, a human rights group (261st by the Philippine Daily Inquirer count), since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became president in 2001.

The elder Asucena pointed to Lt. Marcelo Pascua, Alpha company commander of the 21st Infantry Battalion (IB), as the man primarily responsible for the death of his son, a daily companion who helped him plow the fields and shared with him the hardships of peasant life.

He talked with a fact-finding mission that visited the area last month to look into the situation in the Cagayan Valley region. The mission included representatives of Bayan Muna, Karapatan, a church-based organization in Cagayan and other nongovernment organizations.

The 51-year-old Hipolito recounts vividly how the night of Dec. 13, 2006, turned into a nightmare.

“Bot (Nelson’s nickname), umay kami man (may we come in),” the unexpected caller said thrice.

Nelson rose from his bed but was stopped by his wife. “It is Lieutenant Pascua,” Nelson whispered.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“It is his voice,” he replied.

Asucena walked to the door while his father lit a gas lamp. Hipolito followed his son. Before Nelson opened the door, Hipolito patted his son’s back and asked who was calling him. “It is Lieutenant Pascua,” Nelson repeated.

The two men stepped outside the house to meet with the visitors. Pascua was wearing a camouflage uniform. He was with five hooded men in black carrying long firearms.

‘They are protectors’

“Bring that lamp back. I don’t want to be in the light,” Pascua told Hipolito in Ilocano.

“Cook for us,” Pascua ordered. Hipolito and his wife Catalina began to comply when Pascua changed his mind and said he just wanted a cup of coffee.

Hipolito brought the glasses and a pitcher of water to the men outside, while Nelson stayed inside the house. Doubt never entered the minds of the Asucenas.

Pascua had been a friend. Nelson once sought medication for an injured leg and Pascua’s soldiers provided it.

“Why should we fear them? They are soldiers. They are supposed to be our protectors,” said Marifel.

After Hipolito gave some water to the visitors and went back inside the house, another voice called Nelson: “Bot, come here and get the glasses.”

Nelson came out, alone.

A few seconds later, the family heard the cracking sounds of firearms being loaded followed by the terrified voice of Nelson crying, “Ay! Ay!” Rapid gunfire bursts followed.

The family rushed outside and found Nelson lying face up, his left hand on top of his right rib.

The father shrieked, grabbed his son and watched helplessly as Pascua and his men fled under cover of darkness.

Daughter Lyka came out and embraced her bleeding father, sobbing silently. Relatives and neighbors soon came to mourn the fallen youth.

Agrarian unrest

The Asucenas are among the millions of poor Filipino peasants who dream of owning at least a household farm to live on.

Barangay San Juan has blessed the Asucenas with land suitable for farming and livelihood. But since the Spanish colonial era, San Juan, like other villages in the region, has been engulfed in agitation by peasant movements seeking land for landless tillers.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed component, the New People’s Army (NPA), emerged in the region as farmers stepped up demands for the redistribution of the land.

This earned the ire of the landlords who for a time had felt helpless, especially those who had property in areas considered hot spots of CPP-NPA operations -- particularly in the Marag, Paco and Zinundungan triangle.

From the late ’80s to the middle of the ’90s these areas were declared “no man’s land” as the military went after guerrillas of the CPP-NPA. Human rights abuses surged.

‘Hamleting’

Military operations eased in the late ’90s. “Hamleting” -- a failed US strategy during the Vietnam War that called for relocating villages away from sensitive zones -- was lifted between 1996 and 2000.

San Juan is located in the Zinundungan Valley, and it may have been unfortunate for Hipolito and his family to have been caught in the middle of the conflict between the military and the NPAs.

It was also this conflict that brought Hipolito to San Juan when his family was displaced by military operations in their original home in Marag.

In 1982, Hipolito Asucena saw big trouble ahead when the military again evacuated his family from San Juan to Masi, leaving behind their houses and cultivated farms.

Eight months in Masi’s “concentration camp” pushed the Asucenas back to San Juan. Many children died from diseases in the evacuation area.

The elder Asucena recounted alleged abuses: Soldiers raping women, defecating in communal water catchments, beating peasants during questioning about the NPA presence.

‘They beat us just the same’

“The military would ask us if we had seen NPAs in our place, and when we say ‘yes,’ they say that we are members of the NPA so they beat us. But when we say ‘no,’ they accuse us of covering up for the NPAs and then beat us just the same,” said Hipolito.

There were other bitter memories. He recalled how in 1983, the military burned his house and stole his chickens.

Once, he added, he was told to go to the capital of Cagayan to be presented to the media as one of the NPA “surrenderers.”

In 2003, during a resurgent anticommunist campaign, the military took pictures of the people in San Juan and asked them to write down their names on a document, purportedly to be used in clearing their records as NPA members.

‘Land 6 feet under ground’

In 2004, a military squad stayed in Hipolito’s house for about two months.

On Nov. 24, 2006, soldiers of the 21st IB gathered the people of San Juan in a community meeting for a “census.” Here, a soldier who identified himself as Army de la Cruz declared: “Ex-Mayor Baloran owns the land being given to you by the NPAs. Your only land is six feet below the ground.”

Hipolito says he felt weak and defenseless as the military tightened control of everyday life. Military abuses became rife. It was only on that tragic December night that Hipolito realized his son would give up his life for the festering land dispute.

At the age of 9, Nelson was allegedly already included in the order of battle, a list of people monitored by the Philippine Army suspected of being members of the CPP-NPA.

Most victims of extrajudicial killings were in the AFP order of battle.

On Nov. 26, 2006, Marifel had a premonition of Nelson’s death when she overheard a conversation between Pascua and her husband: “Surrender to us,” Pascua told Nelson after an exchange of jokes.

“What shall I surrender, sir, my plow and my bolo? I am just a farmer,” Nelson replied.

“Watch out for yourself,” Pascua reportedly said.