ANOTHER lumad, or tribesman, was killed in Surigao del Sur by Magahat militiamen on suspicion that he was a supporter of the communist New People’s Army, San Miguel town mayor Alvaro Elizalde said Saturday.
The victim was identified as 23-year-old Orlando Rabuca, a watchman employed by San Miguel town to guard the Bulho-on Elementary School, San Miguel Mayor Alvaro Elizalde told the local newspaper Gold Star Daily.
Elizalde said CCTV footage and witness accounts showed that around 30 armed men in military camouflage uniforms arrived in two white Starex vans at Bulho-on village around 4 a.m. Thursday.
The gunmen warned the villages they would be killed if they support the communist rebels and then shot Rabuca in the head. They left a warning letter bearing the heading “Magahat Regional Command” before leaving the area.
“I pity the victim,” Gold Star Daily quoted Elizalde as saying. “The P2,000 monthly honorarium the municipal government was paying him as school watchman was not even enough for him what more to his family.”
Elizalde said he immediately called an emergency meeting with officers of the Army’s 2nd Special Forces, led by Lt. Col. Gaspar Panopio, and asked them to disarm the militia “since it is suspected that the military are the ones arming the Magahat” who are “again creating trouble in my town.”
But Panopio said the military is still investigating the killing and no armed group has claimed responsibility despite the claim of witnesses, including Elizalde, that they even left a letter warning the villagers against supporting the NPA.
“We just arrived here in Surigao del Sur from Bohol two weeks ago. We were sent here in Surigao del Sur by higher authorities to arrest three primary suspects in Sitio Han-ayan, Lianga, Surigao del Sur lumad killings, to protect the lumads, and identify and arrest the 20 armed John Does companions of Loloy Tejero, Bobby Tejero and Layno,” Panopio said.
But Panopio said he did not see the letter supposedly left by the Magahats. Panopio reasoned that his group has just been deployed in Surigao del Sur, and his troops were part of the augmentation forces sent to Surigao del Sur.
Elizalde insisted that he saw the Magahats’ warning letter and that the town’s chief of police was in possession of the letter, in addition to the sworn statements of witnesses.
Elizalde said the execution of Rabuca convinced him that the people who armed these Magahats are “creating monsters they could no longer control.”
Elizalde echoed the view of Surigao del Sur Gov. Johnny Pimentel who insisted that the military organized and armed the Magahats which has since abused their authority and committed atrocities against lumad communities over the past six years.
