Watchdog accuses ex-Tagum mayor of financing, running death squad

Hundreds of murders were carried out in Tagum City in Davao del Norte between 2007 and 2013 by a vigilante group that a new Human Rights Watch report says was organized and supported by the local chief executive and protected by the city police.

According to the report, former Tagum City mayor Rey Uy helped organize and finance the Tagum Death Squad, a vigilante group that has been blamed for the deaths of at least 298 people, many of whom were suspected drug dealers and thieves. In two of 12 cases that the two-year HRW report verified, former members of the death squad said the mayor paid them off himself.

In one case, that of 23-year-old lumber dealer Jesus Cabayacruz, the mayor himself allegedly warned the victim's mother that he was a target.

According to Leotidina Cabayacruz, the mayor approached her in 2012 to tell her that her son – a suspected drug dealer – would be killed if he set foot in Tagum City.

Romnick Minta, a former member of the hit squad, said in an affidavit submitted to the Davao City Prosecutor's Office that Uy "directly ordered" the murder "because he was suspected of being a drug pusher and had been making large amounts of [money from the] sale of drugs."

Leotidina said in the report that her son was a former drug user, "but he stopped when he became a businessman."

But, according to the HRW report, Cabayacruz was just one of the many "weeds" – or undesirable people – that the Tagum Death Squad killed either on the mayor's orders or with his consent. Among those "weeds" were street children like 11-year-old Macky Lumangtad, whom the TDS allegedly killed in 2011 on the suspicion that he stole mobile phones and money from a local store.

According to the report, targets were picked from an "order of battle," or a list of names given by community leaders, police officials, drug enforcement agents, and an SMS hotline.

But suspicion of committing a crime was not the only way to end up on the TDS hit list. "Criteria for being a target were violating Uy's perceptions of acceptable behavior on the streets of Tagum, regardless of whether the victim's conduct violated any laws," the report said.

Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at HRW, said the murders were a case of city hall and the local police "conspiring to kill its citizens" in a "perverse form of crime control," something that the international watchdog said requires action from the national government and condemnation by the president himself.

Uy has denied the allegation, saying the charges are meant "to destroy" him. In a report on Interaksyon.com, Uy said he was being targeted by political rivals and by drug syndicates.

"They don't want peace and order in the city," he said in the report.

The HRW report notes the incidences of extrajudicial killings have gone down since Uy stepped down from office – his son ran for city mayor but lost to Allan Rellon, the current mayor – but adds members of the TDS may have moved to Compostela Valley, where Uy's brother Arturo is governor.

"Non-weeds"

According to the report, Uy did not order all of the killings, especially after 2005, when the TDS began operating as a gun-for-hire group. Among those killed are "ordinary residents, businessmen, and even police officers."

On Oct. 28, 2011, Roberto Onlos was killed in nearby Maco town over a leadership dispute over the Maco Ancestral Domain Council, Inc., a tribal group involved in mining in Davao del Norte. Before he was killed, Onlos reportedly received death threats from the town mayor, Voltaire Rimando, who wanted someone else on the council.

Minta, now under the protection of the provincial police, said he assisted with the murder and that it had been ordered by Uy's aides.

The death of broadcaster Rogelio "Tata" Butalid on Dec. 11, 2013 has also been blamed on the TDS.

"The instruction to us was if we were sure the target had committed a crime, we can kill him without clearing it with them first," Minta said in the HRW report.

Support from City Hall

According to the report, which is based on interviews and affidavits from victims' relatives, local officials, and former hit squad members, most of the members of the death squad were also employed in the city's Civil Security Unit.

Their legitimacy as "security aides" for the city allowed them to carry firearms and also gave them access to city-owned motorcycles. Most of the killings were conducted by men riding on motorcycles with their license plates either covered with a plastic bag or replaced with "For Registration" plates.

Support from local officials did not stop there. According to Jomarie Abayon, another former TDS member, the hit squad coordinated with local police, who arrived at the scene of the murders before police forensic technicians did. In some cases, police officials fabricated reports to justify the murders.

"In fact, most of our reports were already prepared by police intelligence personnel of the Tagum City Police Station and we were only made to sign it," Abayon said in the report.

Local police officials also allegedly threatened members of the Commission on Human Rights as well as other police officers to keep them from looking into the killings.

Minta says he refused to kill a police officer, whom he described as a "good man," for looking into the TDS, but other members of the TDS went ahead and killed the officer anyway. Minta was fired from the CSU three days after the policeman was killed and an attempt was made on his life a day after that.

Rellon, the current mayor of Tagum City, has since dismantled the CSU but there have also been reports of extrajudicial killings under his administration.

Crime control

HRW believes the creation of the Tagum Death Squad may have been prompted by the perceived success of another vigilante group, the Davao Death Squad. HRW, which investigated the DDS in 2009, said "reports of similar killings in other Philippine cities suggest that the Davao Death Squad, which boosted the popularity of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, has motivated other municipal officials to adopt extrajudicial killings as a crime control method."

Duterte, popular in his city, has often been floated as a potential presidential candidate, which is why HRW says it is important for President Benigno Aquino III to "publicly denounce extrajudicial killings and local anti-crime campaigns that promote or encourage the unlawful use of force."

Kine said Aquino himself has to declare that summary executions as a form of crime control is unacceptable. "The message has to come from the top," he said, adding Tagum City residents did not support the existence of the TDS, especially when it started going after "non-weeds."

The group has also called on the Department of Justice as well as the Office of the Ombudsman to conduct a thorough investigation into the series of murders.

In response to the HRW report, Palace spokesman Herminio Coloma Jr. said the president has already "affirmed the government's commitment to render justice to victims of extrajudicial killings dating back to those that were perpetrated in previous administrations."

Coloma added cases that were previously dismissed have been refiled and that the president has ordered "inter-agency work to complete case build up that will meet the standards of judicial proof will be pursued vigorously."

Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights said it already ordered its regional office in Davao City to "validate and verify" the issues raised by the HRW report even before it was made public.

CHR Commissioner Jose Manuel Mamauag told GMA News Online that the regional CHR office has been ordered to produce a "matrix summary form" that lists the particulars of each suspected extrajudicial killing.

He added CHR offices have been monitoring media reports and have standing orders to investigate indications of rights violations.

He said the commission can hold a public inquiry to look into the alleged series of extrajudicial killings, one of the recommendations made in the HRW report. "We can invite resource persons and we can ask the public about what they know," he said, adding the commission has also met with confidential informants in the past.

"That can be done behind closed doors," he said, so witnesses can be assured of their confidentiality and safety.

He said, though, that the CHR has yet to meet on the report itself. —KBK, GMA News