By BENJIE VILLA

TARLAC CITY – Human rights activists here deplored the alleged government crackdown on the left-leaning Bayan Muna, and efforts of the military to blame the disappearance of the militant party-list group’s leaders and members to a purported new round of purging within the communist underground.

"What the government is undertaking right now is like hitting two birds with one stone," said Emil Paragas, provincial vice chair of the human rights group, Karapatan-Tarlac chapter. "Demolish Bayan Muna by arresting its mass leaders and members, and when the victims can no longer be found, the police and military establishments conveniently blame it on an alleged purge in the (communist-led New People’s Army)."

Paragas disclosed that in the entire month of February this year alone, six militant activists either "mysteriously disappeared" or were arrested on "spurious charges."

Karapatan is holding elements of the Philippine Army’s 70^th and 71^st Infantry Battalion responsible for the disappearance of four activists in Nueva Ecija and Aurora provinces.

The last two arrested activists, both farmers in Capas, Tarlac, were found to be detained in Camp Crame, Quezon City on claims of the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force (NAKTAF) that the militants were involved in a supposed kidnapping incident.

Pastor Diony Sanchez, secretary-general of Karapatan-Tarlac, identified the two missing persons in Nueva Ecija as Juan Orcino Jr., 43, married, a resident of Teachers’ Village in the Science City of Muñoz; and, Honorio Ayroso, 34, married, of Barangay San Isidro, Cabanatuan City.

Sanchez said that Orcino is the provincial organizer of Bayan Muna in Nueva Ecija and at the same time, head of the peasant desk of the radical Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) in the said province. Ayroso, on the other hand, is a former activist who is now engaged in the buying and selling of onions.

Both victims were allegedly seized by elements of the 71^st IB in Barangay Sto. Niño in San Jose City on February 9.

He added that still missing in Aurora are small entrepreneur Rowena Bayani, 32, and tricycle driver Edwin Villaruz, 36. The two are affiliated with Bayan Muna, and were allegedly snatched by elements of the 70^th IB last February 4 in Barangay Cabituculan West in Maria Aurora town.

Paragas, meanwhile, identified the two victims in Tarlac province as Rustico Pamintuan, 29, and Luz Patinga, 51, both farmers in Barangay O’Donnell in Capas town.

He said that last February 2, NAKTAF elements, backed up by lawmen dispatched by the Tarlac police provincial office in Camp Makabulos in this city, barged into the victims’ home and immediately handcuffed them.

The two were then brought to Camp Makabulos where they were allegedly implicated in a still unknown kidnapping case. Allegedly, Patinga was divested of her personal belongings, while Pamintuan was tortured, as Paragas claimed that he vomited with blood.

Both victims, who are now detained by NAKTAF in Camp Crame, are members of the militant Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Tarlac (AMT), the provincial affiliate of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and an allied organization of Bayan Muna.

Only last Monday, February 25, while the nation was observing an official holiday to commemorate the 1986 Edsa People’s Revolution that brought down the Marcos dictatorship, Paragas said that a remote village here in Tarlac was besieged by more than 30 combined elements of the police and the Army’s 703^rd Infantry Division.

He claimed that most of the soldiers who surrounded Barangay Maasin in Pura town suspiciously wore bonnets, and were looking for Lupito Mauricio, a member of the AMT and also a Bayan Muna organizer whom authorities reportedly tagged as an NPA guerilla.

When Mauricio was nowhere to be found, Paragas said that the government troopers tried to seize his live-in partner, Gina Millo, also a member of Bayan Muna. In the ensuing commotion, neighbors overheard a Pura policeman shout, "Barilin mo na."

But when the government troopers where overwhelmed by upset villagers, they decided not to arrest Millo, who also happened to have just given birth last month.

Paragas said that when he inquired with the Pura police station why authorities were also arresting Millo, the town’s police chief, Senior Inspector Anselmo Balbino, claimed that she is listed in the government’s so-called "order-of-battle."

Sanchez assumed that the ongoing crackdown on Bayan Muna and its affiliate groups is part of a government plot to frustrate plans of the militant party-list to field candidates in the coming barangay polls.

During the May 2001 elections, Bayan Muna overwhelmingly topped the party-list polls, as it now has three sectoral representatives in the Lower House.

Paragas further questioned military claims that the NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), is now undertaking a purge, purportedly dubbed "Oplan Missing Link-2," to rid rebel ranks of government spies.

"The timing of this military claim and the crackdown on Bayan Muna is not a matter of coincidence," said Paragas.

"It’s obviously part of a grand scheme," he added. "They both crackdown (on) and raise the communist bogey against Bayan Muna for fear of its growing patriotic influence, and find lame excuses for the government’s manifesting insincerity in pursuing the peace talks with the CPP-NPA-(National Democratic Front)."

Besides, Paragas said that with human rights activists now unearthing cases of unexplained disappearances of militants, "the police and the military are now at a loss for explanations, so they conveniently pass the blame on an alleged purge in the underground movement."