An award-winning journalist accused by an Army brigade commander of being in cahoots with communist rebels is filing an official complaint against the officer, calling his statement against her a “serious threat.”
Inday Espina-Varona, who writes for the abs-cbnnews.com and also maintains a well-followed blog, announced her decision to file a complaint against Colonel Alexander Macario of the 401st Infantry Brigade in a post on her Facebook account. ()
Varona, who is also a former chair of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, told InterAksyon.com said she would consult with her lawyers on what charges to file against Macario but “I will definitely file a complaint.”
The issue stems from a statement issued over the weekend by the 4th Infantry Division, to which Macario’s brigade belongs.
The statement quotes a former New People’s Army officer as claiming communist rebels were responsible for the November 12 burning of the teachers’ cottage and tree nursery of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development in Barangay Padiay, Sibagat, Agusan del Sur.
The school is a branch of the award-winning tribal school in Lianga, Surigao del Sur whose administrator, Emerito Samarca, was murdered on September 1 along with Manobo leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Bello Sinzo by the military-Backed Magahat militia.
InterAksyon.com actually ran a story on the arson based on an interview with Karapatan-Caraga’s Dr. Naty Castro.
Tribal schools set up in lumad communities by nongovernmental organizations have long been openly accused by the military of teaching support for communist rebels and, in the case of ALCADEV, supposedly being an actual training center for rebel recruits.
The 4th ID statement then faulted Varona for accusing soldiers of the arson in relatively record time, noting that “witnesses reported the incident to the barangay officials at around 6 am on Nov 12” and that the journalist “immediately released information at around 8:30 am accusing the soldiers the same day even without proper investigation.”
The still smoldering ruins of the teachers’ cottage of the ALCADEV school in Barangay Padiay, Sibagat, Agusan del Sur after it was burned down on November 12. (photo courtesy of Karapatan-Caraga)
It also quoted Macario as saying this of Varona: “This brings everyone to a question on where she gets information. Aside from the witnesses, the only persons who can give this information are the perpetrators. It seems that this incident is planned and orchestrated.”
What the statement did not mention is that its reaction to Varona was not against any article or blog post she wrote about the incident but to an alert issued by the human rights group Karapatan which she had shared on Facebook. (Here’s the link to what is clearly labeled as an alert from Karapatan, that was shared by Varona on Facebook.)
“Now, on the basis of a post they did not bother to read — a post clearly ascribed to an organisation — a military officer does not just strongly hint that I am an NPA support(er). He actually makes me out as an active collaborator of arsonists,” Varona said of Macario.
While Varona said she is no stranger to critics, she pointed to “a clear pattern in the military’s attacks” against her for closely following the lumad crisis in Mindanao, which has seen thousands of indigenous people flee their homes this year because of atrocities committed by militias and soldiers.
The Lianga murders, in particular, triggered the exodus of more than 4,000 people from several towns in Surigao del Sur who remain at the sports center of the provincial capital Tandag City.
She said the “attacks” against her, which began with a meme accusing her of links to the rebels that was made by “an anonymous poster on an anonymous page” (The page was taken down shortly after media organizations condemned the meme) that was “shared by some military officers,” accusing her of links to the communist rebels in an anonymous Facebook page, “hew to the same worldview that allows paramilitary datu to justify the killing of a school teacher.”
Varona was referring to the testimony of Jumar Bucales of Lianga, who lumad and human rights advocates said is also Marcos Bocales, the identified leader of the Magahat, before the House of Representatives’ committee on indigenous people that Samarca was killed because he had “poisoned” the minds of the Manobo, which committee chair Cotabato Representative Nancy Catamco surmised to mean teaching students an “ideology.”
Catamco has echoed the military’s claims that lumad refugees are not victims of atrocities but “manipulated” victims of “trafficking” by groups out to discredit the government. She has also defended the existence of the militias, claiming this is part of lumad culture.
“This is a country where you have legislators welcoming the idea that murder is ok if the subject is someone with views you violently oppose,” Varona said. “So I take the words of that military official as a serious threat. After all, they wash their hands of the paramilitary but coddle them in their headquarters and appear together with them.”
“We can ascribe the statements to stupidity. But stupid people — with guns and a sterling sense that they are immune from the laws of this land — are very dangerous people,” Varona added.
At the same time, she said, the threat from Macario would not stop her from writing, as she has since the time of the Marcos dictatorship and when, a decade ago, the NUJP was tagged an “enemy of the state” in a PowerPoint presentation produced by the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
http://iva.aippnet.org/philippines-journalist-to-file-complaint-vs-army-brigade-commander-for-threat/
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