‘We’re not in complete control,’ says DND chief
Insists purge behind extrajudicial slays
SAN MIGUEL, Bulacan — Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. admitted on Thursday that government troops were “not in complete control” of the security situation in the country amid unabated extrajudicial killings.
In an interview at Camp Tecson, the headquarters of the elite Army Scout Rangers here, Ebdane said the killings would not stop unless the communist New People’s Army (NPA) stops its “purge” of suspected government supporters within its ranks.
Ebdane was reacting to a statement by US deputy assistant secretary of State Eric John at a Senate hearing in Washington DC that Philippine security forces were not doing enough to stop the murders, which have reached over 800 since 2001 according to the human rights group Karapatan.
“There is a constant effort to stop this [killings]. Pero hindi naman natin kontrolado lahat ng sitwasyon [But we are not in complete control of the situation],” Ebdane told reporters.
“Can we control the other side [rebels] on these killings? We are doing everything within our capability, but on things that are beyond our control, we can’t do anything,” he said.
“Maybe we should engage them [rebels] so they could not perpetrate these [killings],” he said.
Apart from establishing a human rights office in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Ebdane said checkpoints have been set up in places where killings have taken place and along routes frequently used by rebels who extort “revolutionary taxes” from villagers.
Karapatan secretary general Marie Hilao-Enriquez testified at the hearing.
But police Deputy Director General Avelino Razon Jr., former chief of Task Force Usig, a special unit created to investigate the killings, and Colonel Gaudencio Pangilinan, military assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, who were part of a delegation sent to Washington to present the government’s side, were barred from the hearing because they were not invited.
Despite the AFP’s insistence on a communist purge, investigations by United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston and the Palace-formed Melo Commission have rejected this theory and blamed the killings on rogue soldiers.
In a separate interview, AFP chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. sought to bolster the purge theory by citing three rebel attacks on suspected government informants over the weekend.
He identified one of the supposed informants as Siche Gandinao, who testified in the Alston investigation on the February murder of her father-in-law and was gunned down in Salay town, Misamis Oriental province.
Esperon claimed Gandinao, a former rebel supporter, was a military asset.
But this has been denied by party-list Bayan Muna (People First) and the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP; Peasant Movement of the Philippines), to which Gandinao, like her father-in-law, Dalmacio Gandinao, belonged.
In the two other incidents, the informants survived the attacks but one remains in critical condition, Esperon said, refusing to give further details except that these took place in northern Mindanao.
“I have directed my commanders on the field to take further measures to protect the civilians, especially those who have given information [to the military] so the NPA will not harm them,” he said.
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Here are more pictures
Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane tastes water from a newly-inaugurated pipeline in Camp Tecson as AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Special Operations Command chief Major General Victor Ibrado, and Scout Rangers chief Brigadier General Reynaldo Mapagu look on
AFP Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. watches his namesake, Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., plant a tree in Camp Tecson
AFP Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. plants a tree during a visit to Camp Capinpin
Who packs it in best? Special Operations Command chief Major General Victor Ibrado, defense undersecretary Ernesto Carolina, AFP Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., Army Chief Lieutenant General Romeo Tolentino, Northern Luzon Command chief Lieutenant General Bonifacio Ramos, and Scout Rangers chief Brigadier General Reynaldo Mapagu stand in attention as the Scout Rangers hym is sung.
