B’laan antimining leader arrested

GENERAL SANTOS CITY—B’laan tribal leader and antimining activist Daguil Capion, who had eluded a massive manhunt by government forces for years after he was charged with banditry and murder, fell into the hands of police in Malungon, Sarangani.

Chief Insp. Jaime Tabucon, Malungon police chief, said Capion, who violently opposed mining activities in Tampakan, South Cotabato, was attending a fiesta celebration in Malungon on Wednesday when spotted.

“Maybe, he thought that our law enforcers would not recognize him anymore,” Tabucon said.

He said Capion was arrested based on a warrant issued by a Koronadal City judge for his alleged involvement in the March 2011 ambush in Tampakan, in which three persons were killed.

He had since been turned over to the Tampakan police, Tabucon added.

Capion was the object of a massive manhunt in South Cotabato and Davao del Sur since 2012 following the issuance of a warrant against him.

In one operation, soldiers killed instead his wife, Juvy, and their two sons.

In 2013, his brother Kitari was killed in what Capion described as a treachery.

Kitari, he said, was killed while brokering his surrender.

B’laan’s struggle

Capion has become a symbol of the B’laan’s struggle against the destruction of their tribal community by the multibillion-dollar project of mining giant Xstrata-Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) in the boundaries of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Davao Del Sur and Sarangani.

The military said Capion had continued eluding arrest because the New People’s Army provided him sanctuary.

Waiting for intervention

In 2013, he told the Inquirer that even if his wife and brother had been killed, he was determined to surrender but was only waiting for the intervention of “an honest and trusted government official.”

Apparently, that official never arrived as he continued to hide and led his followers in attacks against SMI and government forces in the areas of Tampakan and Kiblawan in Davao del Sur.

“We are ready to die for our struggle,” he said then.

“We are only trying to protect our right to existence within the domain that our forebears left for us to care for our tribe,” Capion added.

The Capions, who descended from a long line of traditional B’laan leaders, maintain that SMI has caused dislocation among B’laan communities and that its operations threatened the livelihood of the natives. Aquiles Zonio, Inquirer Mindanao