The Case for Investigating the 61st Infantry Battalion

The Philippine Army came out and insisted that the person killed by the 61^st Infantry (Hunter) Battalion and the 11 others arrested and detained on April 18, 2020, were members of the New People’s Army, and that the minors among the group were “child warriors” recruited by the rebels.

This claim has been flat-out denied by the families of the detainees, the barangay officials, and the teachers of the schools they attend, all of whom insisted that they were unarmed civilians.

At this point, taking the statements of the 61^st IB and the Philippine Army at face value would not only be misguided, but outright foolish.

The man the 61^st IB shot and killed that day, John Farochilin, turned out to be a member of the Sangguniang Barangay. He was also a known peasant leader who had actively campaigned for farmers’ rights – even meeting, only recently, with the Commission on Human Rights to discuss partnering with the said agency for a public education campaign on human rights issues and to air concerns of violations committed by government troops. If anything, the members of the 61^st IB who were involved in the April 18 operation should be investigated for Farochilin’s death, the motive to kill him being quite apparent.

Notably, since the unit’s deployment in Panay Island, the 61^st IB has been implicated in various allegations of human rights violations – ranging from the warrantless search of homes to the planting of evidence, illegal arrests, and even the murder of two farmers in Maayon, Capiz back in 2017. In all these cases, the 61^st IB uniformly claimed that the victims were members of the NPA, seemingly shielding its members from any proper inquiry into the matter. To a large extent, this tack has been successful and the alleged perpetrators have escaped accountability.

Continuing to accept the Philippine Army’s narrative of events with little or no discernment is the surest formula for impunity. It disregards the fact that, under both domestic and international law, civilians and even suspected rebels enjoy protection against arbitrary and excessive action and the unnecessary use of violence by security forces. Worse, it ensures that heinous crimes and abuses committed by soldiers against civilians living in rural areas – such as those reported on April 18 – will continue unabated and unscrutinized.

A genuine and transparent investigation into the killing of John Farochilin and the arrest, detention, and the physical abuse reportedly suffered by the 11 detainees while under the custody of the 61^st IB should be carried out. It should not merely be a superficial and one-sided inquiry launched for the purpose of deliberately disregarding evidence and swiftly declaring the army absolved of liability. Such type of investigation only emboldens the guilty and encourages the commission of more crimes against innocent civilians and defenseless communities.

Reference:

REYLAN B. VERGARA

Secretary-General

Panay Alliance Karapatan

0920 396 3833