By FROILAN GALLARDO Contributor and GENEVIEVE CANTOR Correspondent AMID cries of justice, family members, friends and supporters buried Mayor Dario Otaza who was abducted and killed by New People’s Army rebels in Butuan City. Otaza was buried on Wednesday along with his son, 27-year-old Daryl, who was abducted with him in Butuan City in Oct. 19. The slain mayor was given a 21-gun salute by the National Police while a pair of Air Force Huey choppers flew overhead as he and his son were laid to rest in Uraya Memorial Gardens in Butuan City. “Sleep well my husband and son. Your deaths will not be in vain. Justice will soon be served,” Ligaya, wife of the slain mayor said. Ligaya said she could not believe that the rebels would murder her husband just because the slain mayor wanted “peace and development” for the town of Loreto and its indigenous people. She said Otaza have worked so hard because of his desire to uplift the livelihood of the lumads. Wilfredo Otaza, younger brother of the the slain mayor said it was up to the National Police and the Armed Forces to bring the killers to justice. “I challenge them to bring the killers to justice. Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said. Mayor Otaza, a first termer, had already filed his certificate of candidacy when he was killed, according to Wilfredo who said the slain official was unopposed in Loreto. Wilfredo said their family would meet and decide who would replace his brother and run for mayor of Loreto, a river town in Agusan del Sur. Maj. Gen. Oscar Lactao, commander of the army’s 4th Infantry Division, said the death of Otaza and his son would strengthen their resolve to end the communist insurgency in this part of the country. Lactao said the slain mayor was “a valuable” partner helping the military persuade NPA rebels who were lumads to surrender and return to the fold of the government. “Otaza was a very valuable partner in our peace and development drive. He was a great peace advocate whose desire is only to help his fellow lumads,” Lactao said. Lactao said Otaza was a member of the Manobo tribe and was a former NPA rebel before becoming an outspoken critic against the NPA rebels. Col. Alexander Macario, commander of the Army 401st Brigade said the police have filed criminal murder with kidnapping cases against NPA leader Rene Catarata and 18 other john does for the death of Otaza and his son. Macario said Catarata is the front secretary of NPA’s Guerilla Front 34 under the North Eastern Mindanao Regional Committee. “Catarata was identified by witnesses and cartographic sketches was made based on their accounts,” Macario said. The NPA Southern Mindanao Regional Command has claimed responsibility  for killing Otawa and his son “to give justice to the thousands of indigenous peoples and peasants terrorize by their tyranny in Loreto and surrounding municipalities in Agusan del Sur.” NPA spokesperson Rigoberto Sanchez said the Otazas were responsible and have directed their tribal Bagani fighters to conduct “intense military operations”  along with the Army 26th Infantry Battalion against the lumads in Loreto town. He also accused the Otazas of land grabbing, illegal mining and engaging in illegal logging activities in Agusan del Sur. The family of Otaza have denied all of these accusations.

‘Fabrications’

Capt. Joe Patrick Martinez, Camp Evangelista spokesperson, sharply criticized Sanchez, and challenged him to show proof that Mayor Otaza had anything to do with the killings of people in his town, including Benjie Planos and Gabriel Alindao in last September 2013. Martinez said Planos and Alindao were killed after they left the NPA just like Otaza. He accused the NPA of being behind the murders, and then blaming these on Otaza. He said the NPA also fabricated stories about Otaza like the illegal detention of minors. But he said Otaza was known to have a soft heart for children while the NPA has long been training and using “child warriors.” “Most of the issues proliferated and fabricated by Sanchez came about after the NPA lost control of Loreto,” said Martinez, noting that Otaza was responsible for the surrender of 246 rebels. “The NPA took it against him.” Martinez also criticized Sanchez for his supposed attempt to justify murder even as it accused the NPA of being the “No. 1 violator of the human rights.” “Sanchez’s fabricated issues about Mayor Otaza don’t justify summary executions. No person is allowed to kill like that. It is wrong to kill,” Martinez said. Martinez said this even as the Human Rights Watch (HRW) sees the Oct. 19 killings as “just plain murder” and the rebel group’s “revolutionary justice” a violation of international humanitarian law. “The killing of the Otazas – like other NPA executions – is just plain murder,” reads a Mindanews report that quoted Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, as saying. “The NPA’s actions and claims of revolutionary justice handed down by people’s courts are flagrant violations of international law.” Robertson, in a statement dated and released Oct. 28, expressed fears that the NPA killings may worsen the human rights situation in Agusan del Sur and other Mindanao provinces where the military and its paramilitary forces have been implicated in extrajudicial killings and forced displacement, particularly against indigenous peoples. Mindanews also quoted Robertson as saying that by “resorting to vigilantism in the name of justice,” the NPA is “only serving to harm its own demands for justice for victims of military human rights violations.” Robertson said the “NPA should end this charade of unjust ‘people’s courts’ and cease all executions.” The HRW statement noted that throughout its four-decade insurgency, the NPA has “frequently executed people found ‘guilty’ by its so-called people’s courts, which do not meet basic fair trial standards.” The HRW said that as a party to an internal armed conflict, the NPA “is obligated to abide by international humanitarian law, including common article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its Second Additional Protocol of 1977 (Protocol II), to which the Philippines is party.” It said International Humanitarian Law “prohibits killing civilians, mistreating anyone in custody, and convicting anyone in proceedings that do not meet international fair trial standards.” It noted that Article 6 of Protocol II specifies that criminal courts must be independent and impartial, and the accused shall have “all necessary rights and means of defense,” among other guarantees, and that those tried by people’s courts are “typically convicted in absentia, thus denied the right to be tried in one’s presence before an impartial court.” The HRW statement added that claims by the NPA that defendants receive a fair hearing during its people’s court proceedings “are not supported by the facts.” It said Philip Alston, the former United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions who investigated extrajudicial killings in the Philippines in 2007, described the “people’s courts” as “either deeply flawed or simply a sham.”