Power Power made you proud to be Filipino.

Was it enough to overshadow the evil that men do?

Eleven months into Corazon Aquino’s Presidency, the tentacles of greed and lust for power by the Militant Left for their own selfish ends would rear its ugly head.  On the 22^th of January 1987, barbed wires, and riot police would stand between a rowdy protesting crowd and the Presidential palace.  It wasn’t something one would associate with a government that won because of People Power.  On that Black Thursday, Jaime Tadeo of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Philippine Peasant Movement) urged on protesters to march from the then Ministry of Agrarian Reform in Quezon City to Mendiola.

Twelve people lost their lives that day because of Jaime Tadeo and the militant left’s bid for power.

To think that that tragedy started that day would be a mistake.

According to, “Policy Paper on Agrarian Reform,” Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas written on May 12, 1986, in 1972, former President Marcos issued Proclamation No. 2.  That Proclamation declared the entire Philippines as a Land Reform area and in Marcos’ words, “to free the peasant from their bondage to the soil”.  A month later, Presidential Decree 27 would reduce and limit that program to rice and corn lands and with tenant farms having to pay amortization for the land.

The policy paper sought confiscation of Marcos crony land and its redistribution.  The termination of amortization payments for tenant farmers and the expropriation of private agriculture lands regardless of whether it is foreclosed by banks.[i]

That’s what Jaime Tadeo and the KMP wanted: a radical shift in agrarian reform.

The Supreme Court En Banc had this to say about that dark day.[ii] The following are the events that transpired on that day:

Eight days and seven nights before Black Thursday, the KMP had camped out in front of the Ministry of Agrarian Reform, specifically the Philippine Tabacco Administration Building, which was along Elliptical Road in Quezon City.

Jaime Tadeo, then National President of KMP presented their “genuine agrarian reform” demands, which were documented in their policy paper.

1. Land must be given for free to farmers.
2. Landlords will no longer hold lands and,
3. There will no longer be amortizations of land payments.

MAR officials led by then Minister Hehrson Alvarez had a dialogue with the militant farmers on January 15, 1987.

On January 19, 1987 marked the arrival of Jaime Tadeo and he sought to meet with Minister Alvarez but was informed the latter could only meet with him the next day.

The meeting did take place the following day at the Ministry of Agriculture conference room. Tadeo demanded minimum comprehensive land reform program be granted immediately.  Minister Alvarez countered by promising to bring the matter to the attention of President Aquino at the cabinet meeting that was held next day, the 21^st of January 1987.

The militant farmers the following day barricaded the MAR office, preventing employees from entering.  They flew the KMP flag along side the Philippine flag.

At six thirty pm (6:30pm) on January 21, 1987, Minister Alvarez met with Jaime Tadeo.  The minister counseled Tadeo to wait for the ratification of the 1987 Constitution (which occurred the following month) and to allow the government to implement its comprehensive land reform program.

Jaime Tadeo said he did not believe in the Constitution and that a genuine land reform could not be implemented under a landlord-controlled congress.

Heated words were exchanged but Alvarez suggested a negotiating panel from both sides to meet the following day.

On the 22^nd of January 1987, Jaime Tadeo and his group did not meet with the government.  They did not engage in negotiation.

Before the KMP marched their leader Jaime Tadeo uttered these words before media, “…inalis naming ang barikdada bilang kahilingan ng gating Presidente, pero kinakailangan allisin din niya ang barikada sa Mendiola sapagkat bubutasin din naming iyon at dadanak ang dugo…”

Trans:  “We have removed our barricade because our President (Aquino) asked for it but she must remove the barricade along Mendiola because we will break through it and blood will flow.”

At ten o’clock (10:00 AM) that morning, The KMP began their March to Malacanang Palace and other militant groups like the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), the League of Filipino Students (LFS), and Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng Maralitang Lungsod (KPML) joined them.

By one o’clock in the afternoon, the protesters took over Liwasang Bonifacio with the usual program as they gathered energies for the march towards the palace.  Perhaps it was indicative of how rowdy the crowd was.  Protesters entered the eastern facade of the Post Office Building, and while there, they removed steel bars surrounding the garden and then the march towards the Presidential Palace began.

At the time, government intelligence report indicated that the KMP rank was heavily infiltrated by elements of the CPP/NPA.  Intelligence reported that an insurrection was impending and the threat so grave that reports indicated that San Beda College and Centro Escolar University would be forcibly occupied.

No longer the opposition, the Aquino Administration had to defend itself.

Col. Cesar Nazareno and his Task Force Nazareno deployed around Malacañang. Police General Lim’s civil disturbance control unity of the Western Police District was likewise activated.

The first line of defense was the Western Police District under their ground commander, Colonel Edgar Dula Torres, then Deputy Superintendent of the WPD.  This line was deployed at the intersection of Mendiola and Legarda Streets.  These units of the WPD were armed with aluminum shields, truncheons and gas masks.

At ten yards behind them, the Integrated National Police from the 61^st and 62^nd INP Field Force carrying truncheons, shiels and gas mask was under the command of Police Major Demetrio dela Cruz.  They formed the second line of defense.

The third line of defense for the palace was the Marine Civil Disturbance Control Battalion, first and second companies under Major Felimon b. Gasmin.  They were Philippine Marines stationed at Fort Bonifacio at that time.  This group of marines was equipped with shields, truncheons and M-16 rifles.

Situated behind the marines were four 6×6 trucks and followed by two water cannons on each side of Mendiola as well as eight fire trucks, four on each side.  The fire trucks were to supply water to the water cannons.  Two Mobile Dispersal Teams armed with two tear gas grenadiers, two spotters, an assistant grenadier, a driver and team leader also held ground here.

It was decided by government forces at the time that Colonel Torres and Major Francisco were to be government negotiators.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, a crowd of 10,000 to 15,000 unruly crowd reached C.M. Recto Avenue and the police line stood to greet them.  No negotiation took place.  No dialogue ever opened.

All hell broke lose as an explosion shattered the peace.

Pillboxes, stones, bottles where thrown.  Steel bars, wooden clubs and lead pipes were used against the police. The police line was breached but when shots were fired, demonstrators withdrew towards CM Recto as government forces continued to fire sporadically.

Two MDTs were deployed towards Legarda Street to lob tear gas at the protesters.

When the dust settled, twelve marchers died.  Thirty-nine people were wounded by gunshots.  Twelve received minor injuries.

On the government side, three sustained gunshot wounds.  Twenty suffered minor physical injuries.

It was a bloody day.

Right after the confrontation, what is clear, President Aquino issued Administrative Order 11, which was dated 22 January 1987.  She created the Citizen’s Mendiola Commission. President Aquino ordered its creation to conduct an investigation on what transpired that day at Mendiola.   Its members included: retired Supreme Court Justice Vicente Abad Santos, as Chairman; retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Y. Feria, and Mr. Antonion U. Miranda as members.

On 27 February, 1987, it submitted its findings[iii]:

1. The march to Mendiola of the KMP led by Jaime Tadeo, together with the other sectoral groups, was not covered by any permit as required under Batas Pambansa Blg. 880, the Public Assembly Act of 1985, in violation of paragraph (a) Section 13, punishable under paragraph (a), Section 14 of said law.
2. The crowd dispersal control units of the police and the military were armed with .38 and .45 caliber handguns, and M-16 armalites, which is a prohibited act under paragraph 4(g), Section 13, and punishable under paragraph (b), Section 14 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 880.
3. The security men assigned to protect the WPD, INP Field Force, the Marines and supporting military units, as well as the security officers of the police and military commanders were in civilian attire in violation of paragraph (a), Section 10, Batas Pambansa 880.
4. There was unnecessary firing by the police and military crowd dispersal control units in dispersing the marchers, a prohibited act under paragraph (e), Section 13, and punishable under paragraph (b), Section 14, Batas Pambansa Blg. 880.
5. The carrying and use of steel bars, pillboxes, darts, lead pipe, wooden clubs with spikes, and guns by the marchers as offensive weapons are prohibited acts punishable under paragraph (g), Section 13, and punishable under paragraph (e), Section 14 of Batas Pambansa Blg. 880.
6. The KMP farmers broke off further negotiations with the MAR officials and were determined to march to Malacañang, emboldened as they are, by the inflammatory and incendiary utterances of their leader, Jaime Tadeo — “bubutasin namin ang barikada . . Dadanak and dugo . . . Ang nagugutom na magsasaka ay gagawa ng sariling butas. . .
7. There was no dialogue between the rallyists and the government forces. Upon approaching the intersections of Legarda and Mendiola, the marchers began pushing the police lines and penetrated and broke through the first line of the CDC contingent.
8. The police fought back with their truncheons and shields. They stood their ground but the CDC line was breached. There ensued gunfire from both sides. It is not clear who started the firing.
9. At the onset of the disturbance and violence, the water cannons and tear gas were not put into effective use to disperse the rioting crowd.
10. The water cannons and fire trucks were not put into operation because (a) there was no order to use them; (b) they were incorrectly prepositioned; and (c) they were out of range of the marchers.
11. Tear gas was not used at the start of the disturbance to disperse the rioters. After the crowd had dispersed and the wounded and dead were being carried away, the MDTs of the police and the military with their tear gas equipment and components conducted dispersal operations in the Mendiola area and proceeded to Liwasang Bonifacio to disperse the remnants of the marchers.
12. No barbed wire barricade was used in Mendiola but no official reason was given for its absence.

You’ve read the timeline of events and the commission’s findings.

The Mendiola Massacre needs to be seen within the proper historical context.

At the time of Marcos, the ranks of the communist left had grown.  Historians agree that the dictatorship was the best recruiter for the Revolutionary Movement.  In 1985, the left called for a boycott of the snap elections.

EDSA People Power not only caught the Left by surprise.  Suddenly, they found themselves irrelevant!  So there really isn’t any love loss between Cory and the Communist insurgency.

On January 29, 1987, Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, S.J. wrote this about Cory Aquino, about “Making Amends for Mendiola Massacre”:

“…perhaps, she was turned off by the combative stance of KMP Jaime Tadeo.  Perhaps, she was convinced that Jimmy Tadeo didn’t come to dialogue but to demand.”[iv]

The protesters led by Jaime Tadeo clearly did not care to negotiate. Perhaps, as Fr. Bernas pointed it, their actions were out of frustration.[v]

Given the historical context that the Communist insurgency found itself in, suddenly they were irrelevant and growing more irrelevant everyday post EDSA.  I believe the Left’s position was a deciding factor.  It is clear the Left had a selfish and vested interest in raising a ruckus.

The Left did not care to be reasoned with.  What is clear is that Jaime Tadeo incited violence with his remarks.  As the commission reported, no negotiation took place as the protesters broke through the police line.

The price of violence was twelve people dead.  Land reform defeated before it started.  The left found itself unable to work constructively to achieve their goals.  They found themselves boxed into the corner of irrelevancy with the middle class showing them disdain.

By the end of 1987, the Aquino Administration waged a war against the Communist insurgency.  EDSA wasn’t just the death of a dictatorship.  It showed too the irrelevance of armed revolutionary bandits hiding behind the nomenclature, “communist”.   Mendiola proved the irrelevance of their tantrums and their violence.  You have been reading the story of the Mendiola Massacre. This is Mendiola Massacre Facts.

Recommended reading:

Mendiola Massacre – Google News Archives, January to December 1987

Mendiola Massacre – Google News Archives, January to December 1989

[ii] Republic of the Philippines, et. al., vs. Edilberto G. Sandoval, et. al., G.R. No. 84607, 19 March 1993.

[iii] Javate de Dios, Aurora, Petronilo Bn. Daroy, and Lorna Kalaw-Tirol, eds. Dictatorship and Revolution: Roots of People’s Power. Metro Manila: Conspectus Foundation Incorporated, 1988. Page 789-790.

[iv] Bernas, Joaquin G. A Living Constitution: The Cory Aquino Presidency. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2000. Page 193.

[v] Ibid., Page 192.

Reports coming in say bodies were pilled up in MIndanao, as if they were mere animals. Massacre is such an understatement. Carnage. inhuman.

There is little to be surprised about the Ampatuans and the Mangudadatu or the Singsons or any other crime lord masking as an official of the government. How different is this from all the extra-judicial killings that has happened in the Philippines? How different is this from Dacer? Ninoy Aquino? How different is this from the attack on former Governor Sanchez of Batangas many years ago? As well as the many nameless faces silenced and deleted just like that.

The Filipino is such a vicious race and this is the wild, wild Far East.

To think to isolate Mindanao because of this round of violence will once more be missing the point. The worst that this massacre show us, at the heart of it all, how utterly absent justice is in the Philippines. That Justice in the Philippines is a mythic creature that must find itself in the same room as the phoenix or the unicorn.

Outrage comes from shock that something like this could happen. We forget how lawless it is out there, outside our door. We forget that we fear the police and the military, not because we will break the law but because we don’t trust either to uphold the rule of law. That quite often it is they, who are the instigators of crime. That we find them, incompetent. We forget that the 1987 constitution specifically made a national police as a response to prevent local government officials from using the police as their personal army. We forget that at every turn, people bend the law to use, to abuse to harass people. We forget that the price of life in the Philippines is so cheap, you can have anyone killed easily. We forget that bandits charging revolutionary taxes have time and again, for example bombed telecom cell towers all in the name of a revolutionary tax. We forget the viciousness of the Abu Sayaff in their kidnap for ransom business. We forget that Justice in the Philippines is at best a whore, available to be sampled by the highest bidder.

We have so little expectation of what government is and what society ought to be. Government at its basic tenant is meant to enforce the law, and uphold regulations. We can thus forgive it for the inability to provide basic services, but can we forgive it when the state has neither the power to act nor the inclination to defend its citizenry? What does it say about a society that allows this?

We think of the Ampatuan Massacre (Maguindanao Massacre) as surreal. It is as mythic as the impossibility of two planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. We think it is related to election related violence— which it is, on the surface. Beneath it all lies how utterly broken our society is when Justice is the best paid escort in the Philippines. How then do we stop the blood from flowing?

If only the cops had not been so fucking trigger-happy, they could have had an unequivocal winner once they captured the killers. Instead, by bringing everything to such an abrupt and gruesome end, they just might have wrested defeat from the jaws of victory.

I’m sure the families would have preferred knowing for sure it was these men that did it. But now, when will that truth ever come out?

Two of my esteemed co-bloggers here at Filipino Voices have already expressed their opinion (in Rom’s case, her anguish), and this part from Atty. Butch’s post caught my interest:

I’m certain the RCBC murderers took some cold, cruel comfort, while they were pulling the triggers on their victims, from the knowledge that, however heinous their crimes, they would never be lawfully executed by the State.

But they can be extralegally executed, right? Calling Fred Lim and/or Rod Duterte and/or Jovito Palparan. Kidding aside, what’s forty years if you can survive that long? You can launder the money with ease, and get to enjoy the fruits of their crimes afterwards? Of course, that depends on the judge and the prosecution’s evidence. Heck, if I were to handle this case, my judgment (if ever the suspects were truly guilty) would be simple: reclusion perpetua for each murdered victims without any possibility of parole.

However, these criminals take comfort in the fact that it would take some time for the justice system to get them: for the police to apprehend them, for the prosecution to file cases, for the judge to hear the case, till the time the Supreme Court upholds the guilty verdict. That is assuming on several factors: that the police would get them, that the evidence would be overwhelming, that the suspects would hire great lawyers who could delay the proceedings, bribe the judge, or the prosecuting team could be weak. Money makes the world go round, and it can even buy justice. And of course, these criminals know that even if they are found guilty, they will die of sickness or old age, not murder, unless they survive the jungle called National Bilibid Prisons.

In short, they committed the crime because they knew the odds are stacked against the People of the Philippines. Our justice system works in favor of the suspects. And that is why I perfectly understand the sentiments of Atty. Butch and Rom.

We can always do our part as citizens of this country in making our justice system work. Sometimes we have to forgo our concept of self-preservation (the concept that currently ails this country). When we see a crime, report it immediately. When you know something about a crime, contact the police. We should not hesitate to stand as witness during a trial. If a relative has committed a crime, report it immediately; if possible, turn him/her over to the police. Follow the law. It is not easy, but these things must be done in order for our justice system to work. I do not have to state the otherwise part.

Of course, we should call on the police to do their part. Please bring back the police-on-the-beat. Please, Mr. Policeman, get a buddy and start walking the streets again. If it means going back to the brown uniform, so be it. Please get off your airconditioned precints/police cars, and walk with us.

And if you know something about this horrendous crime, please, mighty please, tell the police. If one of the criminals is a family member, please forget blood ties – report him/her to the police. For what is money tainted with blood? That makes you a criminal, too.

Let us make our justice system work. Let us make criminal’s lives harder. Let us make crimes pay.

—

Dedicated to those who forget what accountability and command responsibility are.

You’ll probably forget those names not five minutes after you’ve read them. But that isn’t what they deserve. These were people killed by people who wanted money that wasn’t theirs and who didn’t want anyone getting in their way or maybe screwing up their enjoyment of the money they stole.

Everyone agrees that these 10 people deserve justice. Of course they do. But what good is justice for them now? What good is justice for their families? And besides, what justice?

The President has ordered that the killers should, as Lorelei Fajardo put it, be brought to the bar of justice. Excellent soundbite, which is about all it is, because if you were to really bite into those nice words, you would find no meat, no substance. Just air.

How many times have we heard it said that this or that killer will be brought before the bar of justice? And yet the list of the unavenged grows longer everyday, while the list of those who have been actually held to account grows – if at all – only at a snail’s pace. The words disconnect with reality.

I’m sure the President meant it; who wouldn’t? But there is a difference between wanting something to happen – such as wanting to bring murderers to justice for instance – and that thing actually happening. And so it is particularly galling when the President “vows” to bring justice when she must know that her government has so far had a dismal record in that department. It just rings too hollow, Madame. And it tastes like ashes on our tongues.

Far better, I think, for everyone whose appointed duty it is to protect the lives of Filipinos, to just hang their heads in shame. Their mortification will mean much more than empty condolences and fist-shaking vows of righteous vengeance.

In the meantime, add these names to the list of the unavenged.

Roberto Panganiban Castro. Ferdinand Bernard Antonio. Benjamin Manalo Nicdao Jr. Bernardo Lapaan Jr. Noel Olaes Miranda. Juan Marza Layva. Aguilando Baltazar. Olga Gonzalez. Teresita Umayao. Isagani Pastor.