NPA's Valentines’ gift to a 13-year old girl

DAVAO CITY - Memilyn was a typical 13 year-old girl who on her spare time helps her mother in house chores and just like any other girl of her age, weekend is a welcome respite from school and a time to play. Her Sunday should have been wonderful just like the previous week as she is about to play after her family took their breakfast but the succeeding events proved the contrary.

While the rest of the neighborhood and perhaps the whole world are enjoying Valentines’ day with their better half, Memilyn’s foresight is the delight the whole day would bring but her joy was short-lived when violent burst of bullets from automatic rifles suddenly rang and came.

When the smoke of gunfire subsided, Memilyn Moreno lay dead. Her lifeless body sprawled on her own blood. A blood-red Valentines gift coated in full metal jacket from the New People’s Army (NPA).

Memilyn lives in the Village of Sibajay in Boston town in Davao Oriental province. A place which local terrorists frequently harass, often with civilian casualties.

The Valentines attack in this small town is no different in the level of violence with previous ones; only that this time it is supposed to be a day of the hearts and a day of love.

Government peace and development projects under siege

Several peace and development infrastructures are ongoing in Davao Oriental; and in Boston town, a huge road project is taking shape and it happened to be the target of terrorists that fateful day of February 14, 2010 at 8:45 in the morning.

Sebastian Construction Company is at the forefront of the road project that would connect Davao Oriental to Surigao Del Sur which would hasten travel time and provide ease of access and relative comfort to the predominantly Mandaya residents. Sebastian Construction Company has been receiving extortion demands from local terrorists but its management stood its ground and refused to give in.

Troops from the Armed Forces were compelled to secure different construction projects in the countryside due to prevalent threats of local Maoist terrorists and the Sibajay Construction site is no exception. In December of 2009 the same band of local terrorists attacked the same construction site and attempted to burn construction equipment in Boston town killing 55 year old Rosalinda Clata and two government troops while two others who defended the road project were wounded.

Middle of last year, local terrorists were also figured out in a bomb attack against soldiers securing another peace and development project in the village of Puntalinao in Banaybanay town also in Davao Oriental. This is after they burned three powerline towers which brought widespread brownout in the said province.

Government troops pursued but terrorists held hostage two busloads of passengers which made their escape easy. Members of Local Terrorist Front-18 (LTF-18) of the NPA were responsible in the said attack.

More innocent civilians fall prey to terrorists

The case of Memilyn is not new in Boston not even in Davao Oriental and not even in the Philippines. Innocent people fall prey to local terrorists almost every day in Davao region and Socsargen Area; and everywhere, communist terrorists continue to terrorize people.

In November of 2009, 55 year old Silvano delas Alas was about to tend to his farm when he was peppered with bullets as local terrorists attacked his home. The same band of men from Local Terrorists Front-20 (LTF-20) of the NPA who killed Memilyn, were responsible. They said their real target is a government agent but apparently they made a terrible mistake.

Again, in December last year, a spokesperson of the NPA hiding in the name of a certain Simon Santiago bragged about killing a soldier as he sent text message to every media outfit in Davao. Leading reporters of competing media companies rushed to the scene only to be shocked in finding out that Fernando Timbal, a 48 year old bank driver was murdered and not even a shadow of a purported slain soldier is in sight.

Justice for Memilyn and countless others

Memilyn like many others who lost their lives in the lost cause of local terrorists cry in the afterlife as justice proved elusive in putting the murderers face the court.

The year of 2009 proved fatal to innocent civilians in southern Mindanao as 83 people were killed by NPA death squads. 52 of these are plain civilians, unarmed, no means to defend themselves and were murdered in violent ways.

Now, 2010 is a year where we have to brace ourselves as Jorge Madlos, a high ranking communist leader in Mindanao declared that a they will step-up their operation by increasing their death squads in every municipality into a platoon.

The more than 3,000 people who died in the hands of the NPA in their purging operations in the late 80’s and early 90’s are crying for justice. The 39 Tagabawa tribe members massacred by the NPA in Digos, Davao del Sur inside a church in 1989 are crying for justice. The 357 Lumads murdered by the NPA in their ten year plague of terror in Davao region from 1998 to 2008 are crying for justice. The 83 victims of the NPA in southern Mindanao in 2009 are crying for justice.

All of them are crying for justice; and this year, Memilyn is one of them. (Captain Emmanuel Garcia. The author is the spokesman for the Army's 10th Infantry Division based in Davao City.)