CHR wants Sagay massacre witness placed in witness protection program

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines  —  The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) yesterday recommended placing the survivor-witness in last Saturday’s massacre in Sagay City under the government witness protection program.

CHR provincial chief Romeo Baldevarona said there was an attempt to get the witness, a minor, from the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the local police.

The minor is an eyewitness in the killing of nine workers of National Federation of Sugarcane Workers (NFSW).

The victims were resting in a tent when about 10 gunmen opened fire, killing the nine workers who occupied part of a privately owned sugarcane plantation in Sagay City. At least four survived the attack, including the witness, officials said.

Baldevarona said there was an attempt by two elderly individuals pretending to be grandparents of the 14-year-old witness.

He said the father of the victim did not even know them.

Provincial police director Senior Supt. Rodolfo Castil also questioned the motive of some militant groups who wanted to take custody of the witness from the DSWD and police.

The NFSW alleged the minor was illegally arrested.

Castil said the DSWD, upon the request of the father, took custody of the minor because of his traumatic experience witnessing the killing.

Chief Insp. Robert Mansueto, Sagay police chief, said he almost surrendered the minor to the alleged grandparents were it not for the timely arrival of the father of the witness.

Mansueto said the witness and his father are now under the protective custody of local DSWD office in Sagay City.

He added the minor is now undergoing stress debriefing by DWSD social workers.

‘Reds fed victims to private armies’

A senior military intelligence official said the communists literally fed the victims to the private armed groups protecting the interests of landed individuals in the province.

“They recruited and exploited the landless farmers by promising each recruit ownership of one hectare of land to till, knowing fully well any rightful owner of the property will be angry and will react violently,” the official said.

Most landed individuals in Negros Island are known to maintain armed groups in order to secure and protect their properties from lawless groups or unauthorized settlers or land grabbers.

In the case of the hapless victims, they were new recruits of NFSW, a social action group founded in 1971 by former priest and now National Democratic Front (NDF) key leader Luis Jalandoni.

“As new recruits, they were literally fed to the dogs by their handlers who gypped them into believing that for a P500 recruitment each, they can occupy and own a parcel of land for them to till at Hacienda Nene,” the source said.

President Duterte on Wednesday said some farmers’ groups have been infiltrated by the communist New People’s Army (NPA) and are seizing land violently.  

“They seized the land from the original tenants. After the harvest, they go in and seize control using violence and intimidation, backed up by NPA,” Duterte said. 

The military had said the murder of nine sugar workers last Saturday could be part of destabilization efforts of the communists against the President.

The military said the slain sugar workers were used as “bait,” as part of a “grand design” to discredit the government. 

Former Bayan Muna party-list representative Neri Colmenares has blamed government forces for the massacre, claiming that the military had branded land cultivation areas as communal farms that support the NPA.

“The CPP-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army) has the grand design of really having... the situation get worse. If something untoward happens, they would magnify it,” Armed Forces chief Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. said. 

Galvez said people from Mindanao regard land as life, so a forcible occupation of property would result in trouble or even violence.

Galvez noted the Sagay incident happened after the Inter-Parliamentary Union conducted an assessment on the human rights situation in the Philippines and after the country won a seat in the United Nations’ human rights body. 

“It’s a big victory for us in government (winning of UN human rights body seat) and they want to belie it because their theme is the Duterte administration is really doing something bad. Aside from EJK (extrajudicial killings), they are doing killings,” Galvez said. 

Galvez said government forces remain committed to serve justice to the families of slain workers.

“We will bring justice no matter what it takes... We are working with the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) and also with the PNP (Philippine National Police); I also instructed the chief ISAFP (Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines) and also our intelligence to dig deeper on the investigation,” Galvez said. 

Meanwhile, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) called for the resignation of Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones following the killing of the nine farm workers.

“In his statements, Castriciones clearly blamed the dead farmworkers and admitted that Hacienda Nene was not covered by the government’s land reform program. That is a clear admission of DAR’s failure to protect farmers. Castriciones should resign and the DAR should be abolished,” KMP chairman Danilo Ramos said.

Ramos added the “red tagging” of NFSW by authorities is an expected move to cover up the government’s failure to alleviate the situation of millions of landless farmers.

NFSW secretary-general John Milton Lozande agreed Castriciones should resign.

“The DAR secretary’s statements show that he has no right to be the head of the department that supposedly looks out for the interest of poor landless farmers as he was quick to blame the victims who only wanted to stave off hunger,” Lozande said.  – with Jaime Laude, Alexis Romero, Rhodina Villanueva