Fascist state on a rampage
The following are among the latest cases of human rights violations from January to March:
March 15. At least 10 Dumagat families were forced to leave their homes in Sitio Tayabasan, Barangay San Jose, Antipolo City by soldiers of the 1st IB. The soldiers threatened to kill them and burn down their houses if they returned. Carmelita de la Cruz, a Dumagat woman, was also sexually harassed when soldiers forced her to strip in front of her children.
March 1. Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) troops killed Pedro Trabajador, 70. The RPA serves as armed goons of Danding Cojuangco and as a paramilitary force of the AFP. "Tay Pedring" was killed while he was on his way home to Sitio Tanquinto, Barangay Mabini, Escalante City, Negros Occidental. He was a member of the National Federation of Sugar Workers which actively resists the large-scale landgrabbing of peasant lands by the Cojuangco camp to expand its cassava and corn plantations.
Meanwhile, on March 7, the RPA arbitrarily ejected Arden Edem and stripped him of his right to till his land in Hacienda Pandanon III, Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental.
February 15. Butchers from the 74th IB mercilessly killed 95-year-old Adriano Custodio, a former member of the Hukbalahap and a respected resident of Barangay Mabini, Mulanay, Quezon. The military vented its ire on the old man when it found the body of an NPA guerrilla in his house being readied for transfer to a funeral parlor. He was shot and stabbed repeatedly and his feet hacked several times with a bolo. After this, the fascists took the Red fighter's body and paraded it around the barrio while shouting threats against taking care of the NPA.
First week of February. The houses of 465 families in Sogod, Barangay Apopong, Cebu City were demolished upon orders of the City Housing Land Management Office. Less than a fourth of the evicted families were accommodated by the government in a relocation area.
February. Troops from the 27th IB and 11th Special Forces illegally ransacked and stole personal belongings from, houses in the villages of Butril, Kabuling and Lebua, all in Palembang, Sultan Kudarat. Col. Pedrito Magsino, 61st IB commander, covered up for the soldiers' abuses, arguing that this was all part of pursuit operations against the kidnappers of a Korean and a businessman.
January 21. Policemen forcibly evicted residents of Barangay Central, Dipolog City, demolishing about 1,000 houses. Barangay Central, which is near the Dipolog coast, is the site of a planned P65-million "development project" funded by the World Bank. The residents were relocated to a place that had only one toilet and had neither water nor electric services.
January 9. Policemen violently and without warning, demolished 120 houses affecting 800 residents in Sta. Cruz, Barangay Puntod, Cagayan de Oro and illegally arrested 10 civilians. Among those arrested were Nero Vallar, Bayan Muna regional officer and Danny Bulosan, leader of Nagkahiusang Kabus sa Sta. Cruz, an urban poor organization. An arrest order for them was issued only after the victims had been mauled and taken into custody.
| 
