Panay Tumandok link militarization to mega dam
Increased number of combat ready Army and Police troops have been poured to the border area of Iloilo and Capiz provinces, particularly, Calinog, Iloilo and Tapas, Capiz which will host the JRMPP II and Panay River Multi-Purpose Project (in Tapaz, Capiz).
The Army in its radio broadcast tags them as "communists" and "NPA rebels", a technique used to justify attacks on their communities, said Aileen Catamin, secretary-general of Tumandok.
The government has deployed the 47th and 61st batallions in Central Panay where Tapaz and Calinog towns are located. Another composite batallion, sent from Mindanao and Negros islands, have arrived to reinforced. In addition, some 100 SAF (Special Action Force of the PNP) members are deployed in the dam site itself.
Nestor Castor, one of the witnesses at the ongoing Writ of Kalikasan that the Tumandok people filed in intervention to the Kalikasan suit filed by former Rep. Augusto Syjuco Jr. against the government, complained of increased incidents of surveillance and verbal threats. One serious threat relayed to him is that he will be liquidated by the paramilitary ABB-RPA for testifying against the government in the Kalikasan case pending at the Court of Appeals in Manila.
Reylan Vergara of Panay-Karapatan human rights group, lamented that aside from physical attacks and threats, the military has also filed trumped up charges on anti-dam advocates, which one of the panelist, Nelson Gimong, the accused himself, confirmed at the presscon here this morning.
Gimong, a Tumandok youth leader, trains young tribespeople in theater arts, particularly, dancing. However, the military in its broadcast program tagged him an NPA who trains young people guerilla warfare.
Gimong faces rebellion charge filed by the local police against 32 persons, mostly Tumandok, arising from an ambush staged by alleged NPA guerillas on Army soldiers.
The police used as basis, three affidavits filed by soldiers against the respondents. All three are identical except for the personal circumstances of affiants and their names and signatures. The three narrate that they didn't know the respondents but were able to identify all 32 them only through the photo file of the PNP.
The affiants chorused that they were positioned on a higher ground seeing the "fleeing" rebels 150 meters away from them in broad daylight which was further made closer because they used binoculars.
Comment: That's something for the records. At only 150 meters away from the fleeing rebels who displayed their cute faces for government soldiers to identify, the latter could have cut all the ambushers to pieces by merely using their standard M16s assault rifles which have the maximum range of 1,000 meters and maximum effective range of 500 meters.
And as the affidavits show, the three affiants just watched the fleeing rebels and later identified all 32 of them.
The opposition to the P11.2 B dam site ecological and social reasons in their actions. The Save Jalaur River Alliance chided the government for ramming down the throats of the Tumandok the dam despite their refusal to support it. Some 15 barangays in Calinog will go under water once the dam is in place, displacing some 17,000 residents.
The dam sits on a mountain 11 km. away from the West Panay Fault but proponents insists that the structure will be so designed to withstand strong earthquakes and that "only a terrorist attack" can destroy it.
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