Philippine rebels vow to seek justice for brutal murder of leader's daughter

Some 3,000 people join Rebelyn Pitao's funeral march in Davao City. (AKP Images)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 15, 2009) – Communist rebels on Wednesday vowed to seek to justice for the brutal murder of a young Filipino woman by government soldiers.

Rebelyn Pitao, 20, was abducted in Davao City in the southern Philippines on March 4 and her naked body was found the next day floating in a shallow creek in the village of San Isidro in Davao del Norte’s Carmen town. Her body bore torture marks and was believed raped before she was stabbed in the chest.

She was a teacher by profession, who led a simple and quiet life with her family in Davao City.

Some 3,000 people joined her funeral march. Many were chanting anti-government slogan and blaming the military for the murder of the woman, whose father Leoncio Pitao, also known as Kumander Parago, is chieftain of the New People’s Army (NPA) Pulang Bagani Command.

Pitao tagged 11 military agents as behind the murder, an accusation strongly denied by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“Today we are remembering Rebelyn on the 40th day of her violent death. We grieve her passing and are united in fighting for justice for a beloved daughter, friend and teacher. With the same purpose, we are also fighting for justice for all victims of state terrorism under Gloria Arroyo,” he said.

He said the past few weeks after the murder of her daughter, the state has engaged in a deceptive campaign in an attempt to pacify the people's outrage on the savage murder of Rebelyn.

The Army’s 10th Infantry Division and the Eastern Mindanao Command have repeatedly denied any involvements of soldiers to the murder. Police also put up Task Force Rebelyn which is investigating the killing of Pitao’s daughter.

But Pitao said the police task force is insignificant.

“Its sole purpose is to do the bidding of the criminal Arroyo regime. It has only proven the public perception that it was hastily set up to instantly absolve the criminal agents of the 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command-AFP for masterminding and executing Rebelyn's abduction, torture, rape and murder,” he said.

“The Zarzuela of the 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command-AFP during the Commission on Human Rights public hearing and the lies it has propagated related to Rebelyn's death are just the tip of the rottenness of the AFP organization. The duplicity and criminal deeds of Arroyo's running dogs has long been exposed here in Southern Mindanao. It comes as no surprise that the rotten state is not on the people's side, but on the executioners, the killers, the minions of the 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command-AFP,” he said.

The NPA has ordered the arrest of all those involved in the killing of the woman while the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) also held Arroyo and the AFP responsible for the murder.

“These fascist agents are believed to have carried out this dastardly crime in accordance with instructions from higher ups in their desperate campaign to shatter the determination of Kumander Parago and his fellow NPA Red fighters in advancing the people’s revolution. These suspects should be sought and arrested so they could undergo investigation by duly authorized revolutionary authorities and face criminal charges.”

The CPP said the murder of Pitao’s daughter highlights the Arroyo regime’s innumerable crimes against unarmed civilians who are invariably regarded by the military and its counter-insurgency strategists as combatants in the raging civil war.

“Ultimately, it is Gloria Arroyo and her top fascist henchmen who are to blame for the crimes against Rebelyn Pitao. Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya 2 has long regarded civilians as targets of military operations including killings, abductions, torture and other forms of fascism. This has now been most hideously extended to apply as well to loved ones and relatives of armed revolutionaries the fascists cannot get hold of,” the CPP said.

Oplan Bantay Laya is the government anti-insurgency campaign in the country.

As for Pitao, he said: “The people have long despised Arroyo, the mastermind of the killings, the chief implementer of the counter-revolutionary Oplan Bantay Laya, and the main representative of the rotten social system.

Arroyo's criminal regime and its running dogs are extremely isolated from the people.”
He said that genuine justice can only be achieved through revolutionary struggle.

”The revolutionary legal and judicial processes of the people's government, the continued strengthening of the people's revolutionary government in the countryside and the tactical offensives of the New People's Army strongly serve the people's interest and the interest of genuine justice,” he said.

Communist rebels broke off peace talks with Manila in 2004 after the United States listed the communist groups as foreign terrorist organizations and froze their assets abroad on government's prodding. (Mindanao Examiner)

Human Rights Groups Denounce Military Harassment

Statement on the Harassment, Illegal Arrest and Detention of Sister Stella Matutina,

Maria Fe Matibo, Wenceslao Mapa and Gil Sentimales

We, members of the Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPS-HR) in British Columbia, Canada, express our outrage and disbelief at the harassment, illegal arrest, and detention of Sr. Stella Matutina of the Missionary Benedictine sisters and of Maria Fe Matibo, Wenceslao Mapa, and Gil Sentinales, all environmental advocates, last February 16, 2009 in Davao Oriental. Sr. Stella and her companions are members of the Panalipdan, a multi-sectoral alliance for environmental awareness and protection, firm in its anti-mining position and defense of the people's lands.

According to the Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN), Sr. Matutina and her companions were invited by the local officials of Taytayan, Cateel, Davao to talk to the community about environmental awareness and protection.

It is unfortunate that just when entire communities, institutions and individuals all over the world are searching for and working on solutions to environmental problems like global climate change that threaten our very survival as a nation and as a planet, the Philippine military, steeped in paranoia and shortsightedness, once again raises the “terrorist” or “communist” specter to justify detaining Sr. Matutina and company. In this case, officials of the 67th Infantry Battalion alluded to “fake nuns organizing people against the government,” and going as far as to say, “a nun’s place is in the convent.”

We are aware of the backdrop on which this overzealous defense of the government by the military is being played. Mindanao, like the rest of the Philippines, has been and continues to be sold one hundred per cent to foreign big business, foremost of which are mining and logging interests.

With their local partners, among them political and military bigwigs, and the Presidential family, these profit leeches reap the bonanza of the plunder of the national patrimony and could not care less about the pollution of the Philippine lands and rivers, and the deprivation of the people 's right to life and their resources.

We commend Sr. Matutina and her companions for fearlessly standing up for and with the people in the pursuit of justice and genuine development, in spite of the state’s terrorism that they face every single day. We give them our full support as they tread the dangerous path of working with the people in defense of their land and life.

We denounce the culture of impunity that is the hallmark of the government's Oplan Bantay Laya. Touted as the Arroyo regime's “counter insurgency” weapon, it is intended to silence dissent, terrorize the people, trample on their civil rights and liberties and eliminate (or disappear) activists, community organizers and nationalists. The Arroyo regime, its military and agents must be made to stop these gross human rights violations and be held accountable for them.

Justice for Sr. Stella Matutia, OSB and environmental activists. Stop Military Persecution of Church People. NO to large-scale Mining and Militarization.

Military threaten Filipino nuns

Filipino nuns. (CathNews)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (CathNews / Feb. 24, 2009) - A Filipino Benedictine nun has accused government soldiers of harassing herself and other environmental activists after they held a forum on mining and sustainable agriculture in a southern Mindanao village, according to a report by the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN).

UCAN reported that Sr Stella Matutina said armed soldiers wearing camouflaged uniforms harassed her and two environmentalists after they organised a village forum on mining related issues.

"Armed men barged in and roused all of us at gunpoint," Sister Stella Matutina, 40, said in a recent press conference in the southern Davao City. "They demanded to see the documents and materials used during the forum."

The group, invited by local officials, had finished an "anti-mining forum" and talk on sustainable agriculture in Taytayan village on February 15. They were sleeping in a village hall when the incident allegedly took place.

The Sisters' Association in Mindanao condemned the incident. "The Armed Forces of the Philippines is sending out the chilling message that no religious can disrupt their plans of protecting the interests of logging, mining and big businesses," read their statement presented at the press conference.

Sr Matutina, together with Panalipdan, a broad alliance of environmentalists and peoples' organizations, has helped in documenting mining activities in Mindanao's Davao Oriental province, including those of the world's largest mining company BHP Billiton.

Panalipdan's Davao Oriental chairman Wenceslao Mapa and Councilor Maria Fe Matibo from the provincial capital of Mati joined Sister Matutina to conduct the forum.

However, masked gunmen wearing camouflaged military uniforms woke them up before 4 a.m. the next day.

Sr Matutina said the men introduced themselves as soldiers and told her she was not supposed to be there. The nun and the environmentalists were held for hours, until Mati diocese sent Father Edmundo Escobal to negotiate for their release.

Major Randolph Cabangbang, regional military spokesperson contacted by telephone, denied any harassment had taken place and described the incident as propaganda by groups linked to Maoist rebels.

He said soldiers went to the area "to check reports of suspicious looking and armed men."
"Our soldiers did not know the nun was there," he said. "What was she doing there? She was supposed to stay in the convent. What she did there wasn't related to her Church work."

At the news conference, Mapa told reporters the gunmen had pointed two rifles at him and he felt "traumatized." Matibo said she felt embarrassed about the way the nun and Mapa were treated.

Sister Matutina said the incident infuriated her, but she was most concerned about how soldiers would treat "ordinary people who cannot defend their rights."

Panalipdan reported it documented more than 100 applications for mining exploration permits submitted to the provincial government as of December 2008.

Political activists denounce extra-judicial killings, hold rally in Southern Philippines

Members of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), human rights group Karapatan and families of the victims of the extra-judicial killings in southern Mindanao region staged a protest at the entrance of the Eastern Mindanao Command in Panacan in Davao City in Mindanao on February 17, 2009 to condemn the killing of activists, which they claim as allegedly perpetrated by the military. According to Karapatan, from January to October 2008, extra-judicial killings have already claimed the lives of 50 victims while seven persons have been involuntarily disappeared. In seven years and 10 months, 977 victims of extrajudicial killings and 201 victims of enforced disappearance have been documented. (AKP Images / Keith Bacongco)