By Media Mindanao News Service
News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988
Posted by Davao Today
DAVAO CITY (MMNS/September 15, 1987) – July 13 was a terrifying Monday for residence of Upper Mapula, Paquibato District of Davao City. Ten civilians died when some 60 armed civilian Home Defense Force (CHDF) elements and Ata tribesmen staged a daylight attack.
That very day, over 200 families of Upper Mapula went on an exodus from fear to safety. Up to this writing, the terrorized barriofolks have not returned. If left untouched by the remaining few, mostly the culprits themselves, their crops have rotten perhaps.
Media reports have invariably tagged the victims as rebels killed in an encounter. Relatives decried the military version. “How could that be?” they asked. Among the victims were a four-year-old girl, a polio victim and an old couple in their 50’s.
This is the story of then 9-month pregnant Lydia Bismanos whose parents were killed and Fortunato Gabito who lost his two sons in the July 13 bloodletting.
Lydia was a bit surprised when Mariano Macla, a CHDF, went up their house and demanded to see her husband. Answering the query from the kitchen, she told Mariano that her husband was in Panabo.
Then Mariano ordered her to come out from the house. Curiosity prompted Lydia to look out from the porch of their house. She saw Mariano together with several armed CHDF and Ata natives leveling their Surit-surit (homemade shotgun), Carbine and Garand rifles at her.
Fear gripped Lydia as she told the group again that her husband was not around. Then she hastily shut their rattan door and firmly locked it in place. She hurried towards another room, picked up her 4-year old child and crouched low on the floor.
Minutes later, one of the men kicked open the door. When he failed, the man started to fire his rifle, followed by a series of gunshots that lasted for about two minutes.
She hugged her son close and after a moment of silence she heard one of them said “Patay na siguro” (I think they’re dead). The culprits walked away shouting invectives and sounding the agong (a native instrument) as they went their way.
Terror-stricken, Lydia gathered her wits together, scooped her son in her arms, crawled towards the nearest window and jumped out of their house. She ran as fast as her feet would carry her through a bushy area to her nearest Ilonggo neighbor which was one kilometer away.
When she got there, panting, she was informed that both her parents were killed. She immediately decided to see them but her neighbors prevented her. Later, she found out that her father, Aurelio Hinggo, 55, was shot inside their house, while her mother, Jovita Hinggo, 52, was shot several times and hacked to death.
Gitadtad siya nga walay puangod. Pag-alsa namo sa iyang lawas, natagak ang atay,” Lydia recounted to MMNS. (She was mercilessly chopped to pieces. When we lifted her body, her liver fell off.)
Lydia’s sister, Alma and her two-year old daughter Risa who happened to come during the incident were not spared by the gunmen. Luckily, Alma and her daughter, although both were wounded, were not finished off by the gunmen.
Later, Lydia, together with her child and neighbors left for Barrio Lubas, six kilometers away from Upper Mapula. They hurriedly walked through the rain on foot, leaving other things and livestock’s behind.
Fortunato, 52, a member of the Lupong Tagapayapa in Upper Mapula, went to Lower Mapula, some one kilometer away at about 10.30 am to get some wood for his furniture business.
Barely minutes after he reached his destination, he heard a series of gunshots coming from the direction of Upper Mapula. He immediately decided to go back to check. Along the way, he met one resident who informed him that a “pangayao” (tribal war) was going on in their community.
When he reached the Hinggo residence, he saw Jovita Hinggo sprawling on the ground, lying in the pool of her blood. Thinking about his family and fearing the worst that might have happened to his household, he hurried on, only to see the sight he dreaded. At the porch of his house, he saw the dead bodies of his two sons and two employees.
Armando, 17, and Edwin Gabito, 19, together with Freddie Diala, Fortunato’s chainsaw operator and Carding Alfeche, their helper, were all riddled with bullets.
Witnesses to the carnage told him that a certain CHDF named Nonoy Dagsil alias “Gubat” was one among the murderers.
As if the tragedy that befell his household was not enough, 27 days after, that, his nephew Eddie Gallo, 19, was killed in the deserted barangay. Eddie reportedly went to Upper Mapula to harvest some of the corn the family left behind when they evacuated to Lubas, as food at the evacuation area was running out. He was on his way back to Lubas on August 10, bearing a sack of his harvest when waylaid by some Ata natives.
Fortunato said Eddie’s remains were never recovered by the family because of the continued presence of the killers in the area.
When he was first approached by MMNS for an interview at the dialogue between evacuees, government officials and cause-oriented groups held in Davao, Fortunato expressed reluctance. He was wary of Media people after some “twisted” news items about the Mapula massacre appeared in the local dailies.
But because he also wanted to get the facts straight, he submitted himself to an interview.
At present, most of the evacuees who went to Dalisay Village to seek refuge have drifted to find other places to stay. Twelve families who have nowhere else to go are occupying two rooms of a school building.
At the evacuation centers, food is scarce. Most of the children are suffering with respiratory infections. Not one of them wanted to go back to Upper Mapula.
Meanwhile, relatives of the victims have filed murder cases against the identified perpetrators to the Regional Court of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights in Davao City. They also seek the disarmament and disbandment of the CHDFs and armed natives operating in the area.
Reportedly led by 30-year old Mapula first councilor Alejandro Mangod, an Ata leader, the group is said to be encamping in sitio Lukadang, an elevated area overlooking Barangay Mapula. Residents interviewed brushed aside reported claims of certain sectors in the government that the massacre was nothing but “Pangayao” or tribal war to avenge for the death of their fellow Atas.
The real Pangayao, they said, happened in 1975 where two natives were killed but Christians were not victimized. (Media Mindanao News Service News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988 Posted by Davao Today)
