May 13, 2005

Newsbriefs
May 13, 2005
Page A3

'Howling wilderness' once again

BAYAN Muna party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo yesterday asked President Macapagal-Arroyo to order Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. to stop his unit's military offensives, particularly in Calbiga, Samar, which had forced some 900 residents from upland villages to flee their homes.

"(Palparan) is virtually re-transforming Samar into the bloody 'howling wilderness' it was when (American) Gen. Jake Smith wreaked his brutal havoc in the early 1900s. People are being massacred yet the Malaca¤ang remains mum," Ocampo said.

Eleven activists have been killed since February and four attempted murders and 98 documented cases of human rights violations have been reported since Palparan assumed the command of the Army's 8th Division, Ocampo claimed. Philip C. Tubeza, Franco Emman Von Cena