UA Date: 23 October 2007
UA Title: Three killed in adjacent municipalities of Toboso and Calatrava, Negros Occidental, Philippines in a span of two months
UA Case: Assassination
Victim/s: Rodrigo "Bador" Siacor
· 39 years old, married with children
· Male
· A resident of Sitio Makatagal, Brgy. Cambayubo, Calatrava, Negros Occidental
· Member, ANAKPAWIS "Toiling Masses" Partylist
Place of Incident: Sitio Makatagal, Brgy. Cambayubo, Municipality of Calatrava, Negros Occidental
Date of incident: 8 August 2007, at around 6:00 in the evening
Alleged Perpetrators: three members of the Revolutionary Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), one of whom was identified as Lando Baynosa
Victim/s: Antonio Mercado
· 54 years old, pedicab driver, married with children
· Male
· A resident of Brgy. Salamanca, Municipality of Toboso, Negros Occidental
· Chairperson, National Federation of Sugar Workers Food and General Trade (NFSW-FGT) in Barangay Salamangka
Place of Incident: Purok Malinawon Poblacion, Municipality of Toboso, Negros Occidental
Date of Incident: 13 October 2007, at around 10:00 in the morning
Alleged Perpetrators: two men in ski masks and camouflage short pants on board a Honda motorcycle believed to be military agents
UA Case: Summary Execution
Victim/s: Alano Clerigo
· 34 years old, farmer, single
· Male
· Supporter, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) "Philippine Peasant Movement"
Place of Incident: Sitio Lagoc, Brgy Menchaca, Calatrava, Negros Occidental
Date of Incident: 10 October 2007, at around 4:00 in the afternoon
Alleged Perpetrators: Silvestry Abiso, a member of the SCAA (Special CAFGU [Civilian Auxiliary Geographical Unit] Active Auxiliary) and a composite team of 16 soldiers attached to the Task Group North under the command of Col. Felicisimo Budyungan
Account of Incident –
Rodrigo "Bador" Siacor
On 8 August 2007, at around 5:00 in the afternoon, three men arrived at the Siacor residence looking for Rodrigo "Bador" Siacor and asked Bador's wife who happened to be at home. Thinking that they were friends of her husband, she told their 10-year old son to tell his father about the "visitors." Before their son left, Bador's wife noticed another man who remained outside of the house just observing her and his three companions as they were talking inside the house. She later identified him as Lando Baynosa, an RPA-ABB.
RPA-ABB is a counter-revolutionary armed group which according to peasant organizations acts as the private army of big landlords Eduardo Cojuangco as well as Governor George Arnaiz in Negros Occidental.
The group has entered into a bogus and collaborationist peace agreements with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines; they have been issued licenses for their arms by the government and are actively and directly engaged in "police" operations and functions against purported drug users and criminals; they also conduct "intelligence operations" against the NPA, and are trained by the military.
The RPA-ABB is responsible for most of the killings and numerous human rights violations in the province of Negros Occidental.
When her son left, the three men followed him and upon arriving at the charcoal pit where Bador was packing charcoal, one of the men asked him if he was Bador and when he answered yes, the man shot him thrice in front of his son. The three men and Baynosa ran away after the incident.
Bador was an active member of ANAKPAWIS Partylist – a national political party that promotes, advocates, and advances the patriotic and democratic aspirations of marginalized sectors of workers, peasants, fisherfolk, and other urban and rural poor – envisioning that the participation in the national legislature or the present Congress is an opportunity to further strengthen the programs and campaigns of the toiling masses for genuine and significant reforms.
Alano Clerigo
At round 4:00 in the afternoon of 10 October 2007, Alano Clerigo was tending his cow when he was picked up by two armed men, one of whom was identified as Silvestry Abiso, a SCAA member. This was witnessed by victim's brother and two other neighbors. Thinking that the armed men will not harm Alano, his brother forgot to tell their parents about the incident.
But Alano failed to return home that night prompting his family and neighbors to conduct a search the following day. As they were searching in the vicinity of where he was last seen, a composite team of 16 soldiers under the Task Group North together with Silvestry Abiso suddenly emerged from the sugarcane field and confronted them. When they told them of their search, the soldiers ordered them to discuss the matter with Brgy. Captain Ernesto Baynosa. They also asked for a picture of the victim and "volunteered" to help the search. This and Abiso's presence among the soldiers raised the suspicion of the search team. Together with some barangay officials, they trace the direction taken by Abiso and his companion when they took Alano the previous day. Among the bushes close to where the victim was tending his cow and about 150 meters away from his house, the search team found a freshly dug hole covered with soil. When they dug it up, they found the severely mutilated body of Alano. The body bore multiple contusions and burns, the genitalia was sliced in half, the mouth was stuffed with plastic, and the head was wrapped with a plastic bag, a clear indication that Alano was severely tortured before he was killed.
It was learned that the military suspected the victim to be a New People's Army (NPA) supporter because on 10 September 2007, an encounter between the military and the NPA occurred close to the house of the victim.
Prior to the incident, Alano along with other farmers in the community are in the process of forming a farmers association that will be affiliated with KMP.
KMP is a nationwide federation of organizations of landless peasant, small farmers, farm workers, subsistence fisherfolk, peasant women and rural youth that advocates the struggles for a revolutionary agrarian reform program that will abolish all forms of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation and will implement a free and equitable distribution of land resources to tillers; a rural development program complementing agrarian reform that encourages agricultural cooperation among farmers and enhances local production and productivity; economic nationalism and freedom from foreign domination and control, particularly by the US and Japan through national industrialization.
Antonio Mercado
At around 10:00 in the morning of 13 October 2007, Antonio Mercado was driving his passenger in his pedicab at Purok Malinawon Poblacion, Municipality of Toboso, Negros Occidental when two men on board a Honda motorcycle wearing camouflage short pants and ski masks drove alongside him and shot him using a .45 caliber pistol. The victim died instantly while still on board his pedicab.
Antonio was the chairperson of the local chapter of NFSW-FGT, an organization that advocates and advances the rights and welfare of sugarcane workers by fighting for a minimum wage, mandated and lawful benefits, medical services, and the distribution of farm lots.
NFSW is affiliated with the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) "First of May Movement", an independent labor center promoting genuine, militant, and patriotic trade unionism that aims to: protect and promote the workers rights to employment, a decent wage, humane working conditions, and their right to form unions, bargain collectively and to strike; defend the workers from yellow unionism and its reformist, economist and collaborationist tendencies; heighten the political awareness and class consciousness of the workers through massive education, solid step by step organizing and mobilizations in and out of the work place; ensure the workers participation in the national democratic struggle against imperialism, feudalism, bureaucrat capitalism; intensify international solidarity work with workers and peoples of the world.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Send letters, emails or fax messages calling for:
1. The immediate formation of an independent fact-finding and investigation team composed of representatives from human rights groups, the Church, local government, and the Commission on Human Rights that will look into the assassination of Rodrigo Siacor and Antonio Mercado and the summary execution of Alano Clerigo.
2. The arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of the crime/s of assassination and summary execution.
3. The immediate and proper indemnification of the victims; and
4. The Philippine Government to be reminded that it is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that it is also a party to all the major Human Rights instruments, thus it is bound to observe all of these instruments' provisions.
You may send your communications to:
President of the Republic
Malacanang Palace ,
JP Laurel St., San Miguel
Manila Philippines
Voice: (+632) 564 1451 to 80
Fax: (+632) 742-1641 / 929-3968
Cell#: (+ 63) 919 898 4622 / (+63) 917 839 8462
E-mail: corres@op.gov.ph / opnet@ops.gov.ph
Department of National Defense
Room 301 DND Building, Camp Emilio Aguinaldo,
E. de los Santos Avenue
Quezon City
Voice:+63(2) 911-9281 / 911-0488
Fax:+63(2) 911 6213
osnd@philonline.com
Hon.
Raul M. Gonzalez
Secretary, Department of Justice
Padre Faura St., Manila
Direct
Line 521-8344; 5213721
Trunkline 523-84-81 loc.214
Fax: (+632) 521-1614
Email sad@doj.gov.ph
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights
SAAC Bldg., UP Complex
Commonwealth Avenue
Diliman, Quezon City
Philippines
Fax: (+632) 929 0102
Email: drpvq@chr.gov.ph
Please send us a copy of your email/mail/fax to the said government official to our address below.
URGENT ACTION Prepared by:
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