DAVAO CITY—“Return my sons to me, dead or alive.”
It was a mother’s plea that echoed loudly at a meeting here among lumad communities, military and government officials, and human rights workers on alleged human rights abuses being committed against communities caught in the middle of the government’s counterinsurgency campaign.
Julia Poloyapoy’s voice was cracking when she appealed for help from military officers and Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to find two of her sons who went missing at the height of a military operation in the town of Rosario in Agusan del Sur province last year.
A third son had been found dead with multiple bullet wounds.
Poloyapoy was quick to point an accusing finger at the military for the disappearance of her sons—Philip, 30, and Philems, 23. She said soldiers of the 75th Infantry Battalion (IB) took her sons on a road in Rosario.
She said a third son, Phil John, was found dead, his body riddled with bullets.
“Please help me sir,” said Poloyapoy, addressing herself to Lt. Gen. Aurelio Baladad, the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command chief. “They were the breadwinners in our family,” she told the general, talking on the microphone during an open forum.
She said without her sons, “I have nothing else now.” Her husband, she said, “lost his mind after what happened to his sons.”
Lt. Col. Harun Akaz, 75th IB commander, denied that the 75th IB was holding the Poloyapoy brothers, saying the accusation was “pure NPA (New People’s Army) propaganda.”
Akaz, who assumed the command only on Jan. 27, said he was aware of the series of clashes in Rosario in November last year, when an NPA guerrilla and a soldier belonging to the 75th IB were killed.
He said he learned that Poloyapoy was the surname of the guerrilla killed but he was unaware of Poloyapoy’s two missing sons.
“I don’t believe our soldiers can do that,” said Capt. Jasper Gacayan, civil military operations officer of the 401st Infantry Brigade. “Our soldiers don’t kidnap people,” he said.
During the dialogue, Baladad said except for visits to communities to render what he described as peace and development services, soldiers are barred from staying, sleeping or occupying civilian facilities.
A photo of a school filled with soldiers was later shown during the dialogue. Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao