CAMP VICENTE LIM, LAGUNA – An impending crackdown is how Southern Tagalog activists described what would come next after farmer leader Rogelio Galit was arrested Monday evening at Barangay Kaong, Silang, Cavite on murder charges filed at the regional trial court in Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro.
Glen Malabanan, deputy secretary general of the human rights group Karapatan-Southern Tagalog, whose members held a vigil at Camp Vicente Lim, said Galit was whisked off to Calapan at around 6:15 a.m. on Tuesday.
Around 15 armed men in civilian clothes arrested Galit, an officer of the Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan and spokesperson of the Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid sa Kabite, said his wife Patricia who witnessed the arrest at their house.
She added that her husband, a diabetic, has been bedridden for about a year now and was scheduled to undergo an operation.
Calabarzon police director Chief Supt. Ricardo Padilla confirmed the arrest conducted by joint forces of the Cavite police and regional intelligence at around 7:30 p.m., saying, “it is just an implementation of the warrant of arrest.”
Prior to the warrants, a separate case has been filed against several activists of Southern Tagalog in connection with the burning of the Globe cell site in Lemery, Batangas, said the militant fisherfolk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya).
Three of the accused – Kilusang Mayo Uno lawyer Remigio Saladero, Nestor San Jose and Crispin Zapanta – are detained at the Calapan City jail.
“This is just the beginning of an imminent crackdown on activists,” said Malabanan, herself a daughter of a slain Laguna farmer, who had feared that the charges and warrants were a prelude to more arrests of activists.
Included in the charge sheet obtained by Karapatan lawyers were Arman Albarillo, Bayani Cambronero, Rolando Mingo, Orly Marcellana, Doris Cuario, Helen Asdolo, Luz Baculo, Emmanuel Asuncion and Emmanuel Dioneda.
The charges filed at the Calapan City Regional Trial Court under Judge Tomas Leynes were connected to an ambush by suspected New People’s Army rebels in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro on March 3, 2006.
Before Saladero’s arrest on Oct. 23, Globe Telecom filed charges against 27 people before the Batangas prosecutor’s office implicating him in the burning and bombing of a Globe cell site in Lemery, Batangas on Aug. 2.
Globe Telecom said 27 people, mostly activists, committed arson, destruction of private property and conspiracy to commit rebellion.
The names of 17 people in the case in Batangas appeared likewise in the Puerto Galera case.
