Without Fr. Pops, community finds itself in middle of war
ARAKAN, North Cotabato — Members of a community mourning the death of Italian priest Fr. Fausto Tentorio know how it is without the priest around.
Residents of Sitio Upper Lumbo, mostly lumad and peasant families, said Tentorio, popularly known to them as “Fr. Pops,” used to be the shield that gets in the way of military abuses against the poor community.
Now that Fr. Pops is gone, the residents of the lumad and peasant community in the village of Kabalantian are left to fend for themselves.
The absence of Fr. Pops was most felt on the fourth day of his wake when soldiers shot dead a farmer in the community, Ramon Batoy, accusing him of being a communist rebel.
Military version
The military had said Batoy was killed in a clash between soldiers and members of the New People’s Army in Kabalantian on Thursday.
But Batoy’s wife, Gemma, said there was no clash and her husband was not a guerrilla. Gemma, six months pregnant, said soldiers came to their community about 5 a.m. and demanded to enter the couple’s house.
Batoy refused and demanded to see a search warrant. This angered the soldiers who forced their way in and started beating him up.
Gemma said she sought the help of Noli Badol, a neighbor and community leader, who approached the soldiers and tried to talk them into letting Batoy go. Instead, the soldiers tied the hands and feet of Badol and started beating him up, too.
Driven to anger
Gemma said when the beating continued, Batoy fought back, grabbed his bolo and hacked a soldier in the neck. Seeing this, the rest of the soldiers opened fire and killed him.
Lt. Col. Jovencio Gonzales, commanding officer of the 57th IB, said in a radio interview on Thursday that a suspected NPA member was killed in a clash at 5:45 a.m. as soldiers were clearing landmines. Gonzales identified the dead guerrilla as Ramon Batoy.
Gemma insisted there was no encounter. “If he was a real NPA, he would have fought the soldiers with a gun but he only had a bolo,” said Gemma.
A resident said soldiers placed a gun beside the body of Batoy to make it look like he died in a gunfight.
Gonzales, however, insisted that Batoy was an NPA rebel. Soldiers, he said, found three firearms in his house—M-16, M-14 and a Garand.
NPA militia?
Lt. Col. Leopoldo Galon Jr., spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Command, insisted that it was a legitimate military operation against the NPA’s “Militia ng Bayan.”
He said Batoy was a “home-based NPA fighter just like the military’s Cafgu.” Galon said the soldiers were acting in “self-defense.”
Residents said after killing Batoy, the soldiers ordered residents to gather, separating the women from the men. “They took pictures of us and said that we are members of the NPA,” a resident said.
But Galon said it was standard operating procedure to gather the residents “to know who are the combatants and who are not.” Karlos Manlupig, Germelina Lacorte, Carlo Agamon Inquirer Mindanao
