AFP-PNP to charge Joma, Jalandoni, Satur for CPP-NPA purge

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) vowed yesterday to file charges against Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo and Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Ma. Sison for allegedly ordering the execution of some 300 suspected military spies in the 1980s.

AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said the military will join the PNP in filing the multiple murder charges against Ocampo, Sison and chief rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni, who are both living in exile in the Netherlands.

Esperon said the AFP will be represented by Maj. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang, commander of the Army’s 8th Infantry Division in Leyte, joining Eastern Visayas police director Chief Superintendent Ely de la Paz.

Army regional spokesman Maj. Felix Mangyao said former New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas and relatives of the victims will join the suit to testify.

The witnesses alleged Ocampo, Sison and Jalandoni, then key members of the CPP’s central committee in the 1980s, signed an order authorizing the summary execution of suspected spies and informants in their ranks.

Over 300 rebels suspected of spying for the government were executed in the Visayas region.

Some of their remains have been dug up with at least 67 bodies found in a hilly jungle near Inopacan town in Southern Leyte.

"Of course, we will file cases against them. We have witnesses," Esperon said after visiting the area, known as "The Garden," where the remains of the executed rebels have been discovered.

Esperon said the military hoped to cut the number of rebels from 7,000 to 2,000 guerrillas within four years. "An avalanche of developments will outrun them," he said.

Esperon said several former commanders of the NPA’s Southern Leyte Front Committee have openly expressed willingness to testify against their former comrades.

Esperon said the former NPA leaders have opted to lie low for the meantime since they are also being hunted down by their former comrades for leaving the armed revolutionary struggle.

The military said the shallow graves contained the remains of as many as 300 people, based on information from former rebels and victims’ relatives.

Esperon added the remains were those of the victims of the NPA’s "Oplan Anti-VD (Venereal Disease)" internal purges.

"I know what happened in the movement in 1985. Alam ko ang Anti-VD. Ilang beses na nila akong gusto dukutin," said Zacarias Piedad Sr., former Southern Leyte Front Committee (SLFC) commander and Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee (EVRPC) intelligence officer.

He said the CPP-NPA national leadership started to doubt his loyalty to the movement when he asked for a vacation leave to attend to important family matters.

Piedad also positively identified Glicerio Larona, captured recently by the Army in Barangay Abuyogon, Burauen town as one of the active participants in the internal purges.

Larona, secretary general of the NPA’s Southern Leyte Front, had acted as judge and executioner during the kangaroo trial at the time of the purges, Piedad claimed.

Piedad claimed he had commanded an NPA unit to secure The Garden in 1985.

He said it was in The Garden that he saw the written order signed by Ocampo, Sison and Jalandoni tasking the EVRPC to carry out the purges to clean out the movement of spies and informants.

"Noon may isang miyembro lang ang magtanong ng tunay na pangalan ng kasama sa kilusan, ika-kangaroo (court) kaagad yan at hahatulan ng kamatayan sa hinalang espiya," Piedad said.

Piedad joined the other former NPA fighters in their willingness to fight back the communists.

Esperon said the discovery of the killing field only made the AFP and PNP more determined to fight and put an end to 37 years of insurgency.

"These kinds of atrocities make us more determined to finish off the NPA and their front organizations," the AFP chief said.

Maclang and Dela Paz are now gathering the statements of relatives of the 300 to 400 missing victims.

"This is no ordinary crime. This is a crime against humanity," Maclang said.

"Hindi na sila naawa sa mga pamilya ng kanilang mga biniktima," he said.

AFP information chief Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said the charges against Sison, Jalandoni and Ocampo, have no prescription period.

"Rebellion is a continuing offense... It’s a continuing crime," Bacarro pointed out.

‘Scripts’

Ocampo, a former rebel negotiator, denied the allegation after officials reported the mass graves last Thursday.

The opposition lawmaker said he suspected the Army may have announced the discovery of the graves to bolster claims that the rebels were behind numerous killings of left-wing activists.

The killings have been condemned by human rights groups and prompted President Arroyo to create a task force to investigate the murders.

Militant groups have blamed the military, which has denied involvement.

Ocampo claimed he was not aware of the alleged purges in Southern Leyte. He was jailed from 1976 to 1985 then escaped and rejoined the NPA. He was arrested again in 1989.

Ocampo turned the tables on Esperon and claimed the AFP chief was trying to cover up for his mistakes when he helped President Arroyo cheat in the May 2004 elections.

"After helping Mrs. Arroyo cheat in 2004 and in the ensuing cover-up, Esperon now uses this discredited purge story to desperately conceal the military’s role in extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of the President’s critics," Ocampo said in a statement.

Ocampo, who also served as spokesman for the National Democratic Front (NDF), claimed the NPA abides by international humanitarian law. — With Delon Porcalla, Katherine Adraneda, AP