Soldiers at a shed outside the ALCADEV tribal school in Lianga, Surigao del Sur a day before the administrator, Emerito Samarca, was murdered by the Magahat militia
Emerito Samarca, the administrator of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, was killed because he was “poisoning” the minds of the lumad, Manobo “datu,” or chieftains, told a hearing Wednesday of the House of Representatives’ committee on indigenous communities.
However, neither they nor representatives of the National Commission on Indigenous People could say if the murder of Samarca, who was hogtied, stabbed and his throat slit in a room of the tribal school in Lianga, Surigao del Sur on September 1, was a “magahat,” or an act sanctioned by tribal leaders through rituals.
Samarca and Manobo leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Bello Sinzo were killed on the same day by a military-backed militia calling itself the “Magahat Bagani” while, as the military has acknowledged, an Army unit that had preceded their arrival in the community did nothing to intervene.
The hearing was called by the committee chair, North Cotabato Representative Nancy Catamco, herself a Manobo, who has accused lumad who have fled their communities due to atrocities they blame on soldiers and militiamen of being “manipulated” by communist rebels and their “front organizations.”
Catamco has also echoed the military’s open accusation that schools set up by the tribes and nongovernmental organizations teach their students support for the rebels or, in ALCADEV’s case, supposedly double as “training” centers for rebel recruits.
The hearing was attended by Datus Jumar Bucales of San Isidro, Lianga and Rico Maca of San Miguel town, also in Surigao del Sur, and other tribal leaders who share Catamco’s conviction, and military and police officers.
However, it was shunned by the hundreds of lumad who trekked from Mindanao to Manila to press government to act on the atrocities committed against their communities, which have driven more than 6,000 indigenous people from their homes, the bulk of them in Surigao del Sur after the Lianga killings.
Lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc also did not attend the hearing, calling it “farcical and hypocritical.”
Catamco’s questioning revolved around the accusations against ALCADEV as a rebel breeding ground.
“Why was Samarca killed? Was he killed through the magahat?” Catamco asked during the hearing. To which Bucales replied: “Siya ang naglalason sa mga tao (He poisoned the people).”
Catamco then asked him: “Iyan ba ang rason, dahil siya ay may nagawang kasalanan sa tribo, dahil inapakan niya ang kultura ng tribo sa pagtuturo ng isang ideolohiya (Is that the reason, because he committed a sin against the tribe, because he trampled on tribal culture by teaching an ideology)?"
“Iyan ang rason (That is the reason),” Bucales answered, “kasi iyong mga graduate ng ALCADEV pumupunta sa kilusan (because the graduates of ALCADEV go to the movement).”
Catamco then surmised that the decision to kill Samarca murder was not made by only one person, “ito ay dumaan sa ritwal.”
However, Bucales said: “Hindi nagdaan sa ritwal.”
Dominador Gomez, director for the Caraga region of the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples, also said he could “not understand” how Samarca’s murder could have been sanctioned by tribal leaders through their rituals.
Lawyer Ruben Lingating, former NCIP chairman, who was also at the hearing, claimed to have received information that former rebels among the lumad who had kept their weapons after surrendering to government “took it upon themselves” to take steps against the New People’s Army and took it upon themselves to undertake the ritual for the “magahat.”
He claimed these former rebels warned the community to stop supporting the rebels but “the warnings were not heeded,” thus the killings.
His statement echoed military claims that they had nothing to do with the Magahat Bagani and that the Lianga killings and other atrocities attributed to the militia were the offshoot of a “tribal war” between Manobo factions sympathetic to or against the NPA.
However, Surigao del Sur Representative Philip Pichay said he agreed with Governor Johnny Pimentel’s assertion that the militias were a “monster” created by the military “because they are the ones killing the” indigenous people.
When Catamco suggested that the word “bagani,” or warrior, had been exploited and twisted from its original meaning of defenders of the people and culture of the Manobo, Pichay agreed but added, “it just so happens that in our place they (the militias) are called bagani (but) if they are not, then they should not be called bagani.”
“In our place they’re being called also bagani and they are being armed … they are responsible for the killing,” he said. “In our place, it’s the bagani who are harassing the lumad, they should be removed.”
Explaining why they snubbed the inquiry called by Catamco, Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate said: "How can the lumad bakwits (evacuees) expect an impartial hearing in an atmosphere where Representative Catamco is the principal accuser, witness and the judge rolled into one?"
He noted that the inquiry was based on a resolution authored by Catamco to probe the issue of 700 lumad who sought refuge at the Haran Mission House of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Davao City.
In late August, Catamco, who had been invited to a congressional fact-finding mission to probe why the lumad from Talaingod, Davao del Norte fled to Haran, showed up with military officials and berated the refugees, accusing them of being misled by leftist groups and insisting they return home without addressing their demands that the soldiers and militias who occupied their villages and schools pull out first.
Catamco was also accused of instigating a violent attempt to evict the Haran refugees.
"We believe that this farcical hearing will not fairly represent the situation of the lumad bakwits, Zarate said. “It is a ploy to whitewash, dilute, and blur the issue of militarization and human rights violations that is driving the lumad away from their homes."
Cristina Palabay of the human rights group Karapatan,Lorena Santos of Desaparecidos, and Piya Macliing Malayao, of the indigenous people’s party-list Katribu cited Catamco’s role in the attempt to force the Haran refugees home as proof she could not be expected to conduct an impartial inquiry.
At the hearing, Maca claimed he and the tribes folk he leads were the real bakwit because they cannot move freely in their communities for fear of the NPA who, he said, require them to pay “taxes” such as a percentage of the logs they harvest from the forests.
Maca was one of the tribal leaders who gave a press conference at military headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo soon after the Lianga murders. With him was Marcial Belandres, one of the suspects in last year’s murder of another Manobo leader in Lianga.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/120038/alcadev-head-killed-for-poisoning-lumad-house-hearing-told
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