AFP-vigilante ties probed

TARLAC CITY — A local official here has demanded the Armed Forces explain before the city council the presence of Special Operations Team (SOT) soldiers who are allegedly setting up paramilitary groups in at least nine villages of the city.

In a privilege speech, city councilor Abel Ladera, chair of the council’s committee on peace and order and police matters, said that the military SOTs are actually organizing "vigilante units", allegedly under the guise of implementing the government’s Kabalikat Laban sa Kahirapan (Kalahi) program.

Pointing out that it was not clear when the military teams were first deployed in the city, Ladera said that they have already been on an "extended stay" in Barangays Care, Trinidad, Bora, Buhilit, Banaba, Sapang Maragul, Balingcanaway, San Pascual and Villa Bacolor.

The same military elements have reportedly attempted to similarly setup bases in Barangays Balete, Culipat and Maliwalo, but were vehemently opposed by the villages’ respective barangay councils.

The said barangays have been classified by both the police and military as being either "influenced" or "threatened" by the mainstream Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed and political wings, the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front (NDF).

Already, in Barangay Care, Ladera said, that one Army Sergeant Andy Bartolome subjected Dennis Yalung, a member of the radical youth group, Anakbayan, to harassment while the soldier was "under the heavy influence of liquor."

Anakbayan-Tarlac chair, Arnel Navarro, also a resident of the village, claimed to have been detained without the proper arrest warrant and interrogated twice by the soldiers, who asked him to provide them with a list of his organization’s members in this city.

Even some members of the community media were not spared, especially those who had earlier reported on the alleged formation of vigilante groups in the city, when the soldiers reportedly coerced officials of the nine villages to sign affidavits belying newspaper reports about their operations, Ladera said.

The operations of the SOTs, it was learned from the AFP’s Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) based at Camp Gen. Servillano Aquino in Barangay San Miguel here, is being supervised by Lt. Col. John Bonafos.

Military officials here have vehemently denied that they were forming vigilante groups.