De Lima calls for probe on killing of 9 red-tagged IPs in Capiz

Detained Senator Leila de Lima on Saturday called for an immediate investigation on the killing of nine members of an indigenous group (IP) in Tapaz, Capiz; and the arrest of 17 others in Calinog, Iloilo by police units.

“If the reports I received were accurate, the killings were done 'tokhang' style, with State forces barging into their homes at dawn, under the pretext of serving warrants, and eventually killing them because they allegedly resisted arrest,” De Lima said in a statement.

On Wednesday, security forces claimed that nine suspected members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) were killed in Tapaz after they resisted arrest while 17 others were taken into police custody.

However, the group Pamanggas on Thursday said the nine were Tumandok IPs who were "unarmed" and "non-combatants."

Pamanggas said some of the victims were ordered to go out of their house before they were shot while others were "shot dead inside while lying down asleep, in the presence of their families."

According to De Lima, the arrest of red-tagged activists and leaders is a “familiar scenario” that has been repeatedly occurring.

“These leaders were all victims of rabid red-tagging,” she said.

“State-sponsored killings are already beyond contempt but to launch a systematic attack, or in this case, under the guise of a Synchronized Enhanced Management of Police Operations, on indigenous people for defending their ancestral land is a whole new level of evil,” she added.

Death sentence

The senator said red-tagging has “turned into a weapon against freedom of speech and association” and that it has “become a veritable death sentence to critics of the government.”

“Ka Randy Echanis was red-tagged before he was brutally murdered, and so were the others like Zara Alvarez, Agaton Topacio, Eufemia Magpantay, and Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan,” De Lima said.

Echanis, a longtime peace consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), and a neighbor were killed in a rented house in Novaliches in August.

Zara Alvarez, a former campaign and education director as well as a paralegal for human rights watchdog group Karapatan, was killed in Bacolod in the same month.

Karapatan said Alvarez was among those tagged as “terrorists” in the proscription case of the Department of Justice filed in 2018.

In November, NDFP peace consultants Eugenia Magpantay and Agaton Topacio were killed in Angono, Rizal, allegedly during a firefight with the police.

The NDFP, however, said the couple could not have engaged in a firefight as they were both 69-years-old and suffering from various ailments.

Meanwhile, red-tagged doctor Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband were shot to their death in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental in December. Sancelan was accused of being NPA rebel JB Regalado.

“Is a year of bloodbath not enough that it has to end with a mass murder in one day? Hindi pa ba quota ang rehimeng ito sa patayan at kailangang tapusin ang taong ito sa isang masaker ng mga pambansang minorya?” De Lima asked.

The senator said that “persecution and mayhem will persist as long as the law is being weaponized.”

“And as much as we wish that every death will be the last, we know that persecution and mayhem will persist as long as the law is being weaponized with impunity to stifle dissent,” De Lima said.

“Do we really believe that the decades of insurgency will be resolved by labeling those with legitimate claims or grievances as enemies of the state and treating resistance as terrorism?”

De Lima, a vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, has been detained in Camp Crame, Quezon City since 2017 for her alleged involvement in the proliferation of drugs in the New Bilibid Prison.

She has denied the allegations against her. — DVM, GMA News