Most intense military operation in Cagayan Valley in half a decade
A large-scale military campaign is currently being waged in southern Isabela involving 20 platoons from the 45th and 54th IB and other troops under the 5th ID. Since October 8, checkpoints have been set up and troops have been combing through the towns of Jones, San Agustin, San Guillermo and Echague. Vehicles as well as peasants� huts are continually ransacked on the hilarious pretext that these are all part of the "anti-terrorism campaign" and "search
operations against Abu Sayyaf elements". The current large-scale campaign involving both special operations teams and strike operations is the biggest military operation launched in the Cagayan Valley region since the latter part of the 1990s.
The military operations concentrated in southern Isabela are aimed at suppressing the militancy displayed by the people in resisting anti-peasant, deceptive and destructive projects. Among the latter are mining operations conducted by Royal Cement Mining Corp. on almost 24,000 hectares of land in Barangay Dicamay I, Dicamay II, Sto. Domingo and Dumawing in Jones; the Integrated Social Forestry Project, where farms of poor peasants are declared "public lands", seized and planted with Gmelina; landgrabbing involving a thousand-hectare coffee plantation owned by Nestl� Corporation in Jones; and the field testing of Bt-corn by Monsanto, a giant agribusiness corporation, on a 1,700-square meter lot in Barangay Diarao, Jones.
The enemy likewise wants to douse cold water on successful agrarian revolution campaigns and growing people�s actions against militarization, the setting up of CAFGU units and violations of human rights. In October, organized peasants exposed and fought against despotic Jones mayor Jesus Sebastian�s collusion with the military to build a Philippine Army camp in Barangay Dibuluan. Residents of Jones likewise condemned the disruption of their children�s studies due to the military�s conversion of schoolbuildings into camps. They assailed rampant military abuses such as the imposition of quotas on villagers in setting up military camps and detachments; theft by soldiers of the masses� farm animals; and the troops� refusal to pay for goods bought from village stores.
In the barrio of Villabello, Jones alone, at least 24 cases of human rights violations were documented in November due to the large-scale military operations. The most striking cases include the abduction and mauling on October 22 of Willy Lumaho and Tomas Vanhan, both residents of Sitio Germitan, by elements of the 45th IB; and the torture and forcible use as guides of three youths from Villabello�Jerwin Maltezo, Feli and Romulo Ariola�by the same troops, also in October.
Fearing an investigation by members of a fact-finding mission that arrived in Villabello on November 5, the 45th IB transferred its tactical command post to Benguet. Three platoons that were then in Villabello to serve as strike forces were likewise transferred to the adjoining villages of Madadamian and Mabbayad.
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