By BENEDICTO Q. SÁNCHEZ
Last of two parts
BACOLOD CITY— Hacienda Jison in Toboso town in Negros Occidental seemed like the poster-perfect model for the government’s agrarian reform program—the landowner voluntarily offered his 41-hectare plantation for land reform coverage, and farm workers got their certificates of landownership award soon after.
But on July 7 last year, the body of 29-year-old farmer beneficiary Artemio Montealto Jr. turned up in a creek in Sitio Tigsuban, hogtied and bashed with “stones” that, according to a police report, resulted in a broken skull.
Montealto’s murder is unlike many incidents of extrajudicial killings where the suspected perpetrators are police and military personnel. Accused in his killing are former peasants and communist insurgents who have since broken away from the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army. Some are now reportedly guns for hire making their services available to politicians and landowners.
The alleged killers are members of the communist splinter group Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), which emerged from the split with the CPP-NPA in the early 1990s, and the Democratic Alliance of Labor Organizations (DALO) from the leftist National Federation of Sugarcane Workers-Food and General Trades (NFSW-FGT).
Involvement in killings
The RPA-ABB is based largely in the country’s sugarcane producing regions of Western Visayas and Mindanao, and had signed a peace agreement with the government in 2000. But it is accused of perpetrating extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations not only in Toboso but elsewhere on Negros Island.
Records of the Commission on Human Rights show at least five cases filed against brigade members for killings that took place in 2005 and 2006 in Silay City, Manapla and Calatrava towns in northern Negros, virtually turning the area into a “killing field.”
Most of these cases have barely progressed, although in Montealto’s case, some of the accused have been arrested, while one, a former NSFW member named Rolando “Lando” Baynosa managed to elude arrest in January.
Baynosa, one of the seven accused in Montealto’s murder, has been linked to a string of killings of activists in the last six years. He is wanted for, among others, the murders of Usting Bantillan in 2005, Solomon Bantolinao in 2006, and Rodrigo “Bador” Siacor in 2007.
Bantillan was a member of the NFSW-FGT and Pamalong, the local organization of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), in Barangay Lalong, Calatrava. Bantolinao was an NFSW organizer, while Siacor was a charcoal maker and a member of the Anakpawis party-list group in the province.
Baynosa remains at large, even as his supposed accomplices have fallen into the hands of authorities, the latest of them Osias T. Benigay who was arrested on March 8 on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Danilo R. Amisola.
All seven accused “were wearing fatigue uniforms and carrying long arms” of unknown calibers the day they attacked Montealto, witnesses said.
Who is Lando Baynosa?
Interviewed at the Toboso police station, Benigay denied involvement in Montealto’s death, saying he was working in the sugarcane fields when the killing occurred. He also said he was working in the same fields when the Toboso police arrested him.
Police said they seized a homemade .357-caliber Smith and Wesson and six live bullets from Benigay.
Revenge seems to have been the motive of Benigay and company. Montealto had faced charges he attacked Benigay and local DALO chair Florencio Dogomeo. Benigay said he saw Montealto lob a grenade at them, killing Dogomeo.
Benigay said it was Baynosa, an RPA-ABB commander operating in Calatrava and Toboso, who recruited him to join the rebel group.
“We are an RPA group. He (Baynosa) was detailed here to guide us. He’s our leader,” Benigay said of Baynosa.
Baynosa is not listed in the roster of RPA-ABB submitted to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, but Col. Jonas Sumagaysay, commanding officer of the 303rd Infantry Brigade based in Camp Nelson Gerona in Murcia, confirmed Baynosa was an NPA member before he defected to the RPA-ABB where he became “active.”
Benigay described Baynosa as a development worker who taught people to work, farm and plant corn kernels, and not fight the government.
Baynosa’s objective, Benigay said, is to discourage the masses from joining supposed antigovernment organizations like the NFSW. “They’re rebels out to make war. Livelihoods are destroyed because of their war,” Benigay said, referring to the NFSW.
People who know Baynosa describe him as 5 feet 4 inches tall, dark-skinned, muscular, well built, often stubbled, with a flattop or military-style haircut.
‘Army asset’ and mercenary
Baynosa has claimed being an asset of the Philippine Army. But a police investigator who requested anonymity called Baynosa a mercenary. “Baynosa likes to intervene in land disputes and is willing to be used by politicians,” he said.
The police officer said the RPA-ABB had imposed disciplinary action against Baynosa for reportedly extorting money from peanut farmers.
The Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (NNAHRA) confirmed that Baynosa was indeed a former NFSW member and frequently stays in a mountain barangay of Calatrava.
NNAHRA has filed cases of human rights violations against Baynosa before the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) created by the government and the National Democratic Front after both parties signed the Comprehensive Agreement for the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). The JMC was established to monitor implementation of the agreement.
Cases before CHR
The cases the RPA-ABB has been involved in also show the rivalry among these various groups. Filed before the CHR is a case against three brigade members for killing Edwin Bargamento, an organizer and auditor of the NFSW-FGT, in Sitio Guinolayan, Barangay Tortosa, Manapla town on April 13, 2005. Bargamento bore 11 gunshot wounds.
“The motive of killing Edwin Bargamento was brought about by a conflict that exists between the New People’s Army and the RPA-ABB,” the CHR said in a report.
Bargamenta’s wife Vicenta said she knows the killers’ identities, but refused to file a complaint, fearing she would be “the next target,” according to the CHR. His nephew, Sandro Bargamento, witnessed the murder.
Vicenta could have a point, according to Romeo A. Baldevarona, who heads the CHR sub-office in Bacolod City. The following year, a relative, Santo Bargamento, was killed.
Baldevarona said police classified Santo’s killing as a “holdup” although he was killed by “hooded motorcycle-riding men” in an “execution-type” assassination.
On April 17, 2005, four days after Bargamento’s murder, Renante Alesna, also a member of the NFSW-FGT, was manhandled then shot dead, allegedly by “Jun-Jun” Robles and Oltohanie Atar alias “Nonoy” in Sitio Calapnosan, Barangay Lalong, Calatrava.
Alesna and his friends were drinking and dancing to videoke music when Robles and Atar, said to be members of the RPA-ABB operating in Lalong, barged into their party.
According to the CHR, the RPA-ABB had earlier warned Alesna’s elder brother Dexter to quit the NFSW-FGT and the Kilusang Mambubukid Ng Pilipinas of which he was a leader. Alesna, however, continued his membership with the NFSW-FGT and even took over his brother’s post.
Atar and Robles have been charged in court, but remain at large.
Nearly two months later, in exactly the same sitio in Calatrava, NFSW-FGT member Antonio Pantonial was gunned down with a .30-cal. Garand rifle.
Detained at the Negros Occidental provincial jail and being tried for Pantonial’s death before the Regional Trial Court of San Carlos is alleged RPA-ABB member Cresenciano “Ciano” Rocamora.
But Rocamora, 51, denied any hand in the killing, saying he and another suspect, a certain Dokdok, are just plain civilians and that the lone perpetrator was Wilfredo Juanillo who, he said, was an RPA-ABB member who has since been killed.
In Silay City, Task Force Mapalad organizer Rico Adeva and his wife Nenita were on their way home in Barangay Bagtic on May 15, 2006 when three armed men appeared from behind, forced Adeva to drop to the ground, then shot him in the head and different parts of the body.
Like Bargamento’s wife, Nenita was afraid to come out in the open to testify against the killers, believed to be RPA-ABB members. Only one of them has been identified in the case filed with the CHR.
The CHR Bacolod sub-office and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Negros Occidental subsequently filed a murder complaint against the suspect before the Silay City Prosecutor’s Office. The case is pending at the Silay City regional trial court.
Read the first part, ‘Bloodhounds’ in Palparan’s footsteps
(This story is part of the VERA Files project “Human Rights Case Watch” supported by The Asia Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.)