He’s spoken with officials of the Commission on Human Rights, officials of the National Commission on Indigenous Filipinos and with dozens of police officers in various rally negotiations through the years.

That’s not the profile of an NPA leader.

In fact, he and Udarbe were accosted by the PNP on their way to a briefing with officers of Pig-uyonan, a member organization of Kalumbay, which had scheduled a dialogue on the same day with the 65th Infantry Battalion. That dialogue was by the CHR, which is familiar with Goaynon as a legitimate Lumad leader.

Heightened attacks

On the same day the two went missing, the Sandugo Moro and Lumad alliance also reported that a member of a KMP affiliate was found dead.

Sergio Atay, Jr., 35 years old, was found hogtied with 5 bullets in the head.

“Medico-legal investigation shows that he suffered torture marks,” said Sandugo leader Jerome Aba.

Aba said Atay was travelling along the. highway of Sapang Dalaga, Misamis Occidental and Rizal, Zamboanga del Norte when he was stopped, held and interrogated at the Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPSB) check point in the same area.

The next information they got was about his death.

At least four other Lumad community leaders have disappeared since December 12, 2018, according to the human rights group, Karapatan.

Preposterous claims

You can’t even call Datu Jomorito or the NMR KMP chair “shadowy” — they operated in harsh daylight, often in full view of still and video cameras.

But the PNP has made lies a policy, following their Boss, Duterte.

The court has already thrown out their fantastic charges against Rafael Baylosis. (The scenario, of an aging, ailing Baylosis gone to market with a gun and grenade stuffed in a bayong, was the stuff of a bad B-movie.)

The PNP has also filed weird cases against peace advocate Rey Casambre.

The prosecutor ordered the release of Rey’s wife, saying the charge of illegal possession of firearm and explosives against the couple was “preposterous.” Rey remains in jail because of other PNP fantasies.

The PNP chief Oscar Albayalde has insisted that Casambre, a regular on television news talk shows, and former Bayan Muna lawmaker and Philippine Star columnist Satur Ocampo, were among the ringleaders of the spurious “Red October” plot.

“They allege me to be the head of the CPP National Education Department, a member of the CPP International Department, member, member of the NDFP Peace Negotiating Panel, and most recently a Red fighter in an NPA unit operating in Davao Oriental. All at the same time!,” said Casambre in a statement sent to media. “You need only have the vaguest idea of what each of those functions might entail to conclude definitely that it is impossible for any mortal human to be all these concurrently,” he pointed out.

The leaders of various organizations in the united protest commemorating martial law last year went, “Rey WHO?”

Casambre was not a member of any group involved in that campaign nor had attended any meeting to organize the protest.

The PNP doesn’t even try for lucid reports these days.

“What boggles the mind and strain one’s credulity is this: On September 17, at the crucial homestretch less than a week before the big rally I was allegedly coordinating, an army private swore before a Lupon, Davao Oriental fiscal/prosecutor that he saw and recognized me as one of the NPA fighters shooting and wounding him in a remote Lupon sitio.

How remote? Lupon is 1,493.1 kms from Manila as the crow flies, says Casambre.

The NPA ambush occurred less than 18 hours after he left the Batasan; he was an expert source invited by the HOR Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity. He spoke in the presence of then OPAPP Sec Dureza, GRP Negotiating Panel Chair Sec Bello and their staff.

Eight hours before the ambush where the frail Casambre was supposedly displaying some derring-do, he was at a long dinner-meeting with some lawyers and a politician in Quezon city.

That ambush is the basis for the arrest warrants for murder and attempted murder on Casambre. Superman couldn’t have done better.

Killings

Rights defenders suspect that if the missing alert for Datu Jamorito and his companion had not flashed early, they could have ended like Atay.

Just today, around 2:30 am, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Randy Felix P. Malayao, was shot dead inside a bus in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya.

Kodao Productions, an independent news outfit, said Malayao’s ride was at a bus stop when the gunman reportedly climbed aboard, approached the sleeping victim and shot him. He was killed on the spot.

Before President Duterte scuttled peace talks, Randy acted as one of the spokespersons of the NDFP Negotiating Panel in Europe.

Randy faced no charges. I met him in 2014 when Cagayan province joined the fight against pork.

Randy was a gentle, funny and very bright man who would join Facebook jams on music and arts and literature. He will not be forgotten.

National Union of People’s Lawyer President Edre Olalia wrote this requiem for Randy:

“Bad news comes at daybreak. Murder of a colleague in a pitch dark streetcorner, illegal arrests of clients forcibly taken from their houses and cars past midnight, and now another brazen murder on board a lonely long trip on the night bus.

Indeed, the forces of evil prowl in the dead of the night, lurking for the next vulnerable target to silence them. These series of attacks follow one thread: get those who fight the oppressive and exploitative system and who work for fundamental change fast and quick.

It hits you and you mourn, makes you momentarily catatonic with the shock of unbelievable. But Randy, we will one day wake up to the dawn of hope because the nights of rage will usher a morn of justice.”

(I took the photo of Datu Jamorito in Baclaran Church during the 2015 Lumad Lakbayan. This is a clip from an interview with him https://youtu.be/mJNvft1AFeo )