The recent operations in Rodriguez are the latest in a series of intensified crackdown operations under the Duterte administration. In Rodriguez, Kasiglahan Village has been the target of intensified police and military surveillance following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By JUSTIN UMALI
Bulatlat.com
CALAMBA CITY, Laguna – State forces intensified their operations in Rizal province last August 15, resulting in the arrest of eight indigenous Dumagat farmers.
In a report by human rights watchdog Karapatan Southern Tagalog, no less than 30 elements of the Philippine National Police Regional Office 4A arrested the farmers in barangay Puray, Rodriguez, Rizal at approximately 11 in the morning. Karapatan has since called the arrests “illegal.”
As of press time, Karapatan-ST has yet to get the names of those arrested. The group is currently conducting a fact-finding mission to determine the location and status of the eight Dumagat farmers, as well as any additional information regarding their case.
On same afternoon, at around 2:45 pm, 30 armed police and military personnel were spotted in 1K2, Kasiglahan Village, also in Rodriguez.
The recent operations in Rodriguez are the latest in a series of intensified crackdown operations under the Duterte administration. In Rodriguez, Kasiglahan Village has been the target of intensified police and military surveillance following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of the residents of 1K2, Kasiglahan Village are also members of San Isidro Kasiglahan Kapatiran at Damayan para sa Kabuhayan, Katarungan, at Kapayapaan (SIKKAD K3), an organization frequently tagged by state forces as having links to the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Since 2019, community leaders have been frequently visited by officials of the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and asked to “clear their names” with local officials. Police and military personnel also frequented the area, distributing pamphlets which vilified the organization.
On March 7, 2021, four SIKKAD K3 members were killed in simultaneous raids now known as Bloody Sunday: Melvin Dasigao, Mark Lee Bacasno, and cousins Edward and Abner Esto. Two days later, soldiers were spotted in 1K2, Kasiglahan conducting a house-to-house operation in the area.
State forces have also been persistent in conducting operations outside Rodriguez, often at the cost of innocent lives.
Last November 25, 2020, consultants from the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Eugenia Magpantay and Agaton Topacio were killed in a “mafia-style execution” in their residence in Angono by police officers. Magpantay and Topacio were both 69 when they were murdered.
A few weeks later, five farm workers in Baras were massacred by elements of the 80th Infantry Battalion on suspicion that they were members of the New People’s Army. Despite the family’s pleas, the military refused to hand over custody of the remains of Vilma Salabao for over three weeks. Their remains bore clear marks of torture and mutilation.
Bloody Sunday resulted in the deaths of two Dumagat leaders in Tanay: Puroy and Randy Dela Cruz. Both were active members of the Dumagat community and opposed the Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban Dam.
Last May 6, two more activists were arrested on trumped up charges: Gary Doroteo, a Dumagat leader in Tanay opposing the Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban Dam; and Benito Lucio, president of the Integrated Association of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries and former Anakpawis president in Rodriguez. Lucio was arrested alongside his wife Rosita.
The manner of the August 15 operations share similarities with other police “arrests” on trumped-up charges or indiscriminate killing. Last May 10, 2020, 6 farmers in Calaca, Batangas province were arrested on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives by no less than 47 police and military vehicles.
Operations conducted during Bloody Sunday also share a pattern of a disproportionate use of force against their targets, as in the case of Chai and Ariel Evangelista, killed in their home in Nasugbu, Batangas; or Manny
Asuncion, who was killed inside the office of the Workers’ Assistance Center in Dasmariñas, Cavite. Autopsy results from the Bloody Sunday victims suggest that they were deliberately “shot to be killed.”
Disproportionate use of force was also used by combined elements of the police and military in a May 16 raid in Santa Rosa, Laguna which resulted in the deaths of three individuals and the disappearance of KI Cometa, a former student activist. (RVO) 
