Remains of purging victims in Leyte now at Hibod-Hibod Chapel for appropriate final rites

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
September 4, 2006

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte  – A glaring portrait of stark and bitter reality, exposing the dastardly and inhuman acts of the CCP-NPA, the remains of 67 purging victims which were exhumed from the mass grave at Sapang Daco, Caulisihan, Inopacan, Leyte now lies in state at the Sr. San Isidro Labrador Catholic Chapel of Hibod-Hibod, Sogod, Southern Leyte, in order to be given the appropriate last rites.

PIA news team who went to the site Saturday, found out that the Catholic Chapel is only a few meters away from the Philippine Army 43rd Infantry Battalion Company Headquarters in Barangay Hibod-Hibod, Sogod Southern Leyte.

The remains as PIA saw them are still in sacks pending the completion of the improvised caskets which are still being made by the Philippine Army and the local government units. Members of the 43rd Infantry Battalion are taking turns in guarding the remains while the Barangay residents and the Barangay Tanods are keeping vigil and praying for the souls of the victims.

Lt. Col. Mario Lacurom who is the commander of the 43rd Infantry Battalion informed PIA that he and some soldiers brought with them the remains when they came back from the grave site so that they will be given the appropriate final rites before they are buried in the respective barangays where they allegedly came from. The remains have undergone forensic examinations conducted by SOCO under Dr. Angel Cordero.

Lt. Col. Mario Lacurom, who is nursing two fractured fingers as a result of the two-hours steep mountain hike from Mount Sapang Daco the night before, informed that there is no road going to Barangay Caulisihann. One can reach it through trails and by hiking along riversides. From Barangay Caulisihan to the mass gravesite at Mount Sapang Daco, is a steep mountain hike passing through Barangay Monterico of Baybay, Leyte.

He also revealed that of the 67 skeletal remains exhumed from the Garden (gravesite), only one was identified. That is the remains of Gregorio Eras whose remains was identified because of the clothes he was wearing when he was abducted by the NPA, by his brother Domingo who is presently a barangay Kagawad of Barangay Monterico, Baybay, Leyte.

Apparently, the victims of the “cleansing” conducted by the CPP-NPA in the 1980’s up to the 1990’s are not only from Barangay Culisihan, Inopacan, Leyte, but from the nearby villages of Monterico, in Baybay, Leyte; Barangay Cabungaan, Baybay, Leyte; Barangay Maypatag, Baybay, Leyte; Barangay Amguhan, Baybay, Leyte; Barangay Ampihanon, Baybay, Leyte;  Barangay Pansangan, Baybay, Leyte; and Barangay Camansi, Inopacan, Leyte.

Lt. Col. Lacurom said that about three of those exhumed were the remains of women as proven by the brassiere and the strap of the clothes they were wearing. That the victims were tortured is seen by the fractured skulls and the broken ribs of the some of the victims, he added.

Because the killings were done many years ago, the other relatives who went to the site in order to help in the digging, can no longer recognize their relatives who were abducted from their homes in the 1980’s by the members of the NPA and who never returned home since then.

Witnesses accounts revealed that they know the names of those who took their relatives. Some of those purged were members of the NPA and some were civilians who were under suspicion and were tried in the Kangaroo Court and were sentenced to “ihaw” (butchered) in the native dialect. They said that that is the difference between the legal courts and the kangaroo court of the NPA. In the Kangaroo Court, by mere suspicion, without listening to the side of the suspect, he is sentenced to be tortured to death.