Innocent and dead: Rebelyn Pitao

“Way magrebelde kung walay magdaug-daug,”
(There will be no rebels if there are no tyrants) –Evangeline Pitao, mother

You know, that’s why I think I will never make a good lawyer or reporter, because I always get emotional. I cannot separate what I feel about something and make it objective. Lawyers and reporters, they have to toughen it up. I’m sure they get more emotional because they know the facts, but they always have to put up a strong façade, ready to defend and report on their case with heads up high. But me? I think I’m more an activist. Don’t jump into conclusions just yet; it’s a different kind of activism. I write the things closest to my heart –the things that inspire me, and the things that anger me.

Just like today when I read the news about Rebelyn Pitao, a 20-year old teacher from Davao Del Norte who was abducted while she was on her way home by armed men believed to be military agents. Had she not been Rebelyn Pitao, she would have still lived a little longer, celebrated her 21st birthday this March 20, and continued the noble life of teaching Grades 2 and 6 in her little town in Toril.

But as it happens, she was not just Rebelyn Pitao. She was the daughter of Leoncio Pitao, who is better known as Commander Parago of the New People’s Army.

Allegedly, it was 10th Army Infantry Division’s Military Intelligence Group (MIG) that abducted her. This, the CCP believes, is part of the Oplan Bantay Laya 2, an operation that was launched in 2002 to counter communist insurgency in the country, particularly against Al-Qaeda-linked militant group Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim rebels in the south. It began to target the CPP and the NPA in 2003.

Rebelyn was an ordinary teacher whose life was lived out on a simple routine: She would leave the house at 6:30 in the morning and be home by 7 in the evening. She always rode the six-peso tricycle home. It was this simple routine that made it so easy to be the target of military surveillance.

On the night that she was abducted, she was forcibly dragged into a white van, screaming helplessly out into the dark, deserted highway. That was the last time she was seen alive.

Her mother Evangeline says with tears and anger in her eyes, “grabe ka-brutal.”

Her body was dumped in an irrigation canal somewhere in the next town. It was clad only in underwear and bore torture marks, five stab wounds and possibly, rape.

What angers me is this incessant disregard for the value and sanctity of human life. Never mind that she was the daughter of a rebel; a rebel who the government has failed time and again to capture; who has had a string of battlefield victories under his Command against the military and the government.

What infuriates me, what really, really infuriates me is the fact that something so heinous and monstrous was done to an innocent person. Was it her fault that she was her father’s daughter? Was it her fault that her father has eluded capture all these years? What has she got to do with all these? And just who do these people think they are to commit something so beastly?

Can you see it? Can you imagine what she must have gone through that night as she was tortured (playfully) to death by her captors, her hands tied, her mouth taped, her neck strangled with a rope, and men beasts raping her in turns?

The problem with people who are in power is that they think they can always get away with their sins. They may just be able to do that today. This case might get buried along with the other cases that never found justice or answers. This case, and her life, might soon be forgotten. But the beasts that did this will have their time. Their sins will find them out.

Tao si Rebelyn. May pangalan, may buhay, may kinabukasan, may dignidad.

Kayong mga hayop kayo, kung sino man ang dumukot sakanya, gugustuhin niyo bang mangyari din iyon sa sarili ninyong anak o pamilya? Would you also want that to happen to your daughter, young, innocent and her life still ahead of her?

That is the great irony of this life. Those that are not innocent still live, while those that are innocent are dead.

I condemn this barbaric act. You will all get your life sentences before God, mga hayop kayo.

~ by thatwordinme on March 9, 2009.