Murder like it’s 1495: U.S.-backed counterinsurgency in the Philippines

by NICK ALEXANDROV

Norma Capuyan, vice chair of Apo Sandawa Lumadnong Panaghiusa sa Cotabato (ASLPC). PHOTO/Keith Kristoffer Bacongco – CC BY 2.0

Two men, soldiers probably, noticed Bai Leah Tumbalang. This was last August. She was in Valencia City, in the Philippine province of Bukidnon. The men drew near on their motorcycle, followed her, then pulled up to shoot her in the forehead. She died immediately.

But her death was not random, not senseless. With it her killers signaled that protecting native lands is a sin, unpardonable. Because Tumbalang “was a leader of Kaugalingong Sistema Igpasasindog to Lumadnong Ogpaan (Kasilo), an organization whose members campaigned against the entry of mining corporations in Bukidnon and for the defense of their ancestral domain.” And people like her, doing similar work, get gunned down again and again in the Philippines.

In terms of slain environmental activists, “the Philippines was the worst-affected country in sheer numbers” last year, Global Witness reports. Beverly Geronimo, 27, was active in the Tabing Guangan Farmers Association (TAGUAFA), and like Tumbalang against major mining firms. She was walking her eight-year-old daughter home when two men, armed, stopped her and shot her to death. Father Mark Ventura, 37, an anti-mining and indigenous rights advocate, “was blessing children after a Mass” when a man in a motorcycle helmet came from the room’s far side with a gun, firing twice and killing him. Thirteen members of the National Federation of Sugarcane Workers (NFSW) were occupying part of “a vast sugar cane plantation…when about 40 armed men surprised them,” killing nine— “including three women and two teenage children”— and lighting “three of the bodies on fire.”

Global Witness charges the Philippine military, “working in collusion with powerful private interests”— those Kasilo, TAGUAFA, the NFSW and others oppose— with these murders. You can charge the U.S. government as well. No Southeast Asian military gets more Washington funds than the Philippines, with security aid totaling $1.35 billion from 2000 to 2020. Obama was far more generous than George W. Bush to Philippine forces, bestowing $651 million to his predecessor’s $400 million. For those pining for pre-Trump days, it’s comforting to know Obama worked to leave a legacy.

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