Army troops, backed by an armored vehicle, have occupied a hinterland community in Pangantucan, Bukidnon where soldiers allegedly massacred five Manobo kinsmen, including a blind 70-year old and two minors, a priest said Saturday.
Fr. Christopher Ablon, who is also spokesman of the human rights organization Karapatan in Northern Mindanao, said the armored vehicle and two truckloads of troops from the 4th Infantry Division arrived in Barangay Mendis on Friday and “cordoned off” the community called “Block 8” in Sitio Mando, where tribal elder Herminio Samia, 70, his sons Joebert, 20, and Emir, 19, and nephews Norman, 13, and Elmer, 17 -- now dubbed the “Pangantucan 5” -- were shot one by one, allegedly by soldiers, as they emerged from their house on August 18.
Samia’s 15-year old son, the sole survivor, has surfaced to refute the military’s original claims his relatives were “New People’s Army combatants” slain in a “legitimate encounter.”
(SEE RELATED STORY: SHOT ONE BY ONE | TEENAGE SURVIVOR RECOUNTS 'MASSACRE' OF BUKIDNON LUMAD)
Citing reports reaching him from the area, Ablon, who is based in Cagayan de Oro, told InterAksyon.com by phone that the troops allegedly tried to confiscate the residents’ cellular phones when they surrounded Block 8 Friday night.
Acknowledging that he no longer had any contact with the community on Saturday, Ablon said, “We fear the military will use the dialogue to threaten the Manobo and maybe even frighten them into ‘surrendering’ and then presenting a different story of what happened there.”
Ablon said the Army “has already modified its original version of what happened on August 18,” citing an interview given by 4th ID spokesman Captain Patrick Martinez to a local radio station, “in which he said, ‘Hindi namin alam, baka NPA ang nakapatay sa kanila (We don’t know, maybe the NPA killed them)’.”
The NPA’s North Central Mindanao Regional Command spokesman Allan Juanito earlier confirmed that they had clashed with Army Special Forces on August 18 and had left an AK-47 rifle, which the military earlier said had been recovered from the Samias, behind but stressed that the fighting happened some four kilometers away from the community where the five were killed.
Even as he dismissed Martinez’s claim, Ablon said the change in the military spokesman’s narrative “is a tacit admission that the victims were, indeed, civilians.”
Ablon also scored the military who, he said, harassed religious who joined a “solidarity” mission to Barangay Mendis on September 2, accusing them of being NPA pretending to be priests and nuns.
The alleged massacre of the Samias is one of the many atrocities visited on indigenous peoples' communities in Mindanao in recent months.
In Surigao del Sur, close to 3,000 residents of hinterland villages have evacuated to the provincial capital, Tandag City, following extrajudicial murders allegedly committed by tribal militia backed by the military, including the killing of Emerito Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, an award-winning tribal school in Barangay Diatagon, Lianga town, and the execution of Dionel Campos, chairman of the Malahutayong Pakigbisog Alang Sa Sumusunod or MAPASU, and his cousin Bello Sinzo, in front of hundreds of residents.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/117101/military-occupies-bukidnon-massacre-village---priest
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