Protector of citizens or the powerful?

Brad Miller

TAMPAKAN, MINDANAO: “They are becoming a true paramilitary unit,” says Rene Pamplona of the Diocese of Marbel’s Social Action Center (SAC), describing the citizen militia called the Barangay Defense System (BDS), a program created by the Philippine government, ostensibly as a form of “neighborhood watch” for self-defense, but increasingly criticized for its use by the military to spy on communities and aid in its counterinsurgency effort against communist guerrillas.

“They are being encouraged to use their guns against the communists,” he says.

Under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya 2 campaign to crush the 40 year-old guerrilla war being waged by the leftist New People’s Army (NPA), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has continued to follow a counterinsurgency strategy that uses civilians to identify, and battle, the NPA.

With the mandate of Macapagal-Arroyo, the BDS in Tampakan, South Cotobato and other areas in southern and eastern Mindanao were set up under the direction of the AFP’s Eastern Mindanao Command and its 10th Infantry Division (ID). Lt. Col. Joshua Santiago, who leads the 27th Infantry Battalion (IB) out of nearby Tupi, says the military will not arm the BDS because of their limited supply of ordinance, but are allowing the communities to protect themselves. Other AFP sources say the members will use their own weapons, and are controlled by the barangay (barrio) councilors, not the military.

Tampakan’s acting Vice Mayor, Relly Leysa, says that “the concept of the BDS is good for barangays that defend themselves,” but that recent developments have created doubts about the programme’s true intentions and possible consequences.

After Tampakan’s mayor and the 27th IB agreed to form a BDS unit in the municipality, the barangay officers were able to organize a pro-BDS rally last April 19. As many as 500 people attended, and were instructed to brandish signs tagging progressive organizations such as the political party Bayan Muna and women’s rights group Gabriela as “communists.”

According to testimony provided by a BDS member, this was followed the next month by a week-long training session conducted by the 27th IB at the Tampakan Central Elementary School to enable the militia to secure their community against communist attack and provide the military with intelligence on leftist organizations and activities in their neighborhood. The Kabiba Alliance for Children’s Concerns has documented the use of kids as BDS spies (a violation of United Nation’s statutes) and even information passed on to the AFP by adults can be of questionable integrity, often prejudiced by rumour and personal grudges, but sufficient to get someone placed on the military’s “watch list.”

Opponents of the citizen defense program are also claiming the BDS is being used to safeguard the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project of Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI). SMI of the Philippines, along with Australian-based Xstrata Copper (a subsidiary of the Swiss-British firm Xstrata Plc) and Indophil Resources NL, also Australian, is developing what may be one of the biggest copper deposits in Southeast Asia.

The proposed open-pit mine has been controversial, drawing the wrath of religious leaders, environmentalists and the NPA, who attacked the firm’s base camp on 1 January 2008.

Congressional Representative for the Gabriela Women’s Party, Luzviminda Ilagan, who participated in a May 2009 International Solidarity Mission fact-finding tour, stated in a press release that the BDS is “a modernized divide and rule tactic,” which is used to “attempt to diminish the unity of the community against the encroachment of a big mining company in the area.”

“We are really alarmed,” says Rene Pamplona, “because in the three barangays covered by the mining application, the barangay captains were pushing for residents to become BDS members.” And he says there are indications that certain barangay councils have been diverting cash from their Barangay Development Fund allocated for road construction and other infrastructure projects and buying guns at local Marbel stores. He notes that since SMI/Xstrata has contributed millions of pesos to the fund, it may be arming the BDS “in a more legal way.”

The 10th ID has claimed that citizen defense forces are permitted under the Local Government Code to preserve peace and order and that they are supported by the communities, citing the towns of Toril, Davao and New Bataan, Compostela Valley as examples. But critics question whether the local code allows for the BDS to be armed or controlled by the military. They also say the programme divides communities, and, as the group “Nagkahiusang Katawhan” of Sibulan, Davao del Sur has testified to the City Council of Davao, their participation in the government militia will make them a target of the NPA.

When the fear of attracting conflict prompted a mango farmer (who asked not to be identified) to refuse the request of the BDS to build a guardhouse on his property in Digos, Davao del Sur, they accused him of being a member of the NPA and built it elsewhere, only to have the insurgents torch it soon after.

The “Nagkahiusang Katawhan” also says that while membership in the BDS is supposedly voluntary, they have been forced to participate in the militia’s patrols, and therefore neglect their crops. The farmers have asked that the BDS be disbanded, and the issue is now under investigation by Davao’s City Council.

Over the last several months, there have been reports of known BDS members accompanying the AFP on military operations near Tampakan, dressed in full battle gear and carrying high-powered weapons. Local religious leaders who are opposed to both the BDS and the proposed SMI/Xstrata project continue to be threatened, and fear that the killers of vocal anti-mining advocate Boy Billanes, who was gunned down last 9 March in the Marbel public market, may train their sights on other activists.

The SAC has noted the recent formation of a BDS unit in Colombio, Sultan Kudarat, a municipality that also lies within the Tampakan Copper-Gold Project.

Pamplona says: “We sense that they are just starting up.”

- Third World Network Features