‘Military violence and deception’

LETTER

In the first week of December, the Ifugaos witnessed a truly unusual celebration of Human Rights Week. The 86th Infantry Battalion, perpetrator of numerous recent human rights violations in the province, snatched for itself a prominent role in the commemoration of this important occasion. It held its own sham celebration that insulted the intelligence of the Ifugaos.

While the people remembered the lives and contributions of revolutionary martyrs and other victims of human rights, the soldiers were busy covering up the crimes of the ruling classes that they serve. It was ironic that the military that has terrorized and suppressed the people to protect the interests of foreign and local corporations has now been ordered by the Aquino administration to take a prominent role in making Human Rights Week a fiesta.

The people have long been aware that the military uses deceptive means to cover up its actions of terrorizing and violence. It continually launches gimmicks like peace covenants, conscripts residents into the CAFGU, and brags about bogus victories in the name of peace.

Operating troops occupy schools and other public facilities within villages. Local residents, especially children, no longer feel safe in their homes and communities. The presence of troops had become a heavy burden to the people.

Soldiers use firewood and even tear down school walls for fuel, either because they are too lazy or too scared to gather firewood from the nearby forest. Local residents in Asipulo who participated in the Brigada Eskwela at the start of the school year found cellophane-wrapped feces strewn around the schoolyard by soldiers.

There have been reports of soldiers refusing to pay their debts in some stores, stealing chickens and rice, and extorting money from civilians. In many of their criminal acts, soldiers pretended to be NPA guerillas. But the people have not been fooled. The masses embrace the NPA because of the iron discipline of its Red fighters and reject the criminal, violent and deceptive military.

Similarly, the Aquino administration and its military cannot fool the national minorities of the Cordillera and the rest of the Filipino people. It may launch one gimmick after the other, but the people will remain acutely aware of the lack of social services especially for the marginalized national minorities in the hinterlands.

It cannot hide the government projects that expropriate ancestral lands and natural resources to sell to foreign and local big business interests. Several mining companies including Shipside Inc., a subsidiary of Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corporation, Horizon Resources Corporation, an American entity, and Cordillera Exploration Company Inc. have standing Financial and Technical Assistance Application for mining operations in Ifugao.

When these corporations are allowed to operate, the people of Hungduan, Asipulo, Tinoc and Banaue will suffer the same fate as that of other Cordillera communities ruined by large scale mining: residents forced off their ancestral lands, denuded forests, polluted rivers, various diseases and exploited miners and mine employees. These realities that confront the Ifugaos cannot be hidden by the military’s sham celebration of Human Rights Week.

The Ifugaos are astute. They will never fall for the military’s deceptive gimmicks. The people remain unwavering in their belief in the Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA and the Cordillera People’s Democratic Front. The revolutionary movement calls upon the people of Ifugao and the rest of the Filipinos to closely scrutinize and reject the gimmicks of the Aquino regime for it is only through a national democratic revolution that social justice and genuine peace could be achieved.

Remember the martyrs of the national democratic revolution!
Join the NPA and advance the protracted people’s war!

Ka Wigan Moncontad
Spokesperson
Nona del Rosario Command
New People’s Army - Ifugao