CASE IN FOCUS: The "Negros Nine"

(This article was initially published in the book "That We May Remember" on 1987.)

The "Negros Nine" wearing their barong with custom-made embroidery inside the provincial jail. Photo from Poor Man's Priest: The Fr. Brian Gore Story

“A vexatious case.” – Ferdinand Marcos

It was the kind of welcome one would least expect. Fr. Brian Gore had just returned to his parish in Oringao, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental from a six-month vacation in his native Australia, when he was met with the bad news. Soldiers have raided his convent that night and had abducted Ignacio Colago, a member of his parish’s Kristiyanong Katilingban (KK). There was barely time to protest or investigate because the next day, the soldiers returned and arrested two more of his parish workers.

Lt. Mariano Galo, leader of the raid, alleged that they have uncovered subversive materials, a fragmentation grenade, and five rounds of .45 caliber ammunition. Despite his staunch denial, Fr. Gore was charged with “illegal possession of explosives and ammunitions.”

Although no warrant of arrest was served, right after the announcement things went from bad to worse. Six days later the military accused him anew. Together with six leaders of the KK, Fr. Gore was charged with “inciting to rebellion”. The six lay leaders were Jesus Arzaga, Arnesto Tajones, Lydio Mangao, Conrado Muhal, Peter Cualaes and Geronimo Perez.

Served with warrants of arrest, the seven were sent to jail on October 18, 1982 accompanied by their Prelate, Bishop Antonio Fortich. Some 600 priests, sisters and friends kept vigil and slept the whole night outside the jail.

The next day some 500 KK members silently marched from Oringao to Kabankalan with streamers stating their message: “Hunger Fast for Justice”. In the afternoon of the same day, 6,000 KK members braved the downpour and assembled for a Mass for Justice under the acacia trees of Kabankalan plaza. From there, they held a procession to where the seven were imprisoned. The same transpired the next day but the seven remained locked-up the whole day.

October 21 marked the day of the hearing. The sala (courtroom) was jammed with people. Finally, the good news: bail had been granted to Fr. Gore and the six KK leaders.

However, it was a short-lived calm before the storm. On November 4, a local daily announced that the soldiers were again pressing criminal charges against Father Gore, his fellow Columban priest, Niall O’Brien, and the six lay leaders – this time for the ambush-slaying of Kabankalan Mayor, Pablo Sola, and his four aides on March 10, 1982.

The clergy did not know whether they should take this strange news seriously. It was known all over Negros and to the military that the New People’s Army had already claimed responsibility for Sola’s murder. Also on July 21 that year, Colonel Mario Hidalgo of Task Force Kanlaon told the Visayan Daily Star that the two guerillas they had captured had “admitted participating in the ambush”.

But the military was bent on pursuing its own bluff. Claiming it had the affidavits or witnesses to justify the criminal suit, Captain Galileo Mendoza of Task Force Kanlaon filed multiple murder charges on February 25, 1983 with the Kabankalan Regional Trial Court against the two Columban priests, the six lay leaders and one diocesan priest, Fr. Vicente Dangan.

The case attracted nationwide media coverage and the accused eventually came to be collectively known as the “Negros Nine”.

The military took time in arresting the Negros Nine. It was only on May 6, 1983 that military authorities decided to send a helicopter to Inapoy village to pick up the two missionaries and the six lay leaders. The accused refused to go by air, thus forcing the soldiers, led by Colone Francisco Agudon, to escort them by land all the way to Kabankalan where Father Dangan joined them in jail.

Bacolod Bishop, Antonio Fortich, though aware of the warrants of arrests for his priests, did not expect them to be arrested that day. On the morning of that day, he and Col. Agudon had agreed that the warrants should be served on May 8, a Sunday, in Kabankalan where all the religious would join him in a co-celebrated mass for the Negros Nine. Anticipating this rousing event, Agudon reneged on his agreement with the Bishop.

A day after the arrest, President Ferdinand Marcos intervened by ordering that the three priests be put under house arrest. The defense lawyers, however, wanted their release on bail. A petition seeking the nine’s provisional liberty was then organized. But assistant provincial fiscal, Lindy Diola, blocked this on May 16, 1983 and engaged the defense in sixteen more court sessions which took two subsequent months in the sala of Judge Emilio Legaspi.

The military presented seven witnesses. Most of whom were members of the Civilian Home Defense Force (CHDF), to support their claim that the Negros Nine carried out the ambush-slaying of Sola. These witnesses claimed that on March 10, 1982, the priests, after meeting three times to plan the murder, set out for the ambush using the blue parish truck driven by Father Gore with Father O’Brien by his side and 13 lay leaders, armed with M-16s, at the back. In the village of Camansi, the ambush site, the two priests released the “strike force”, commanded by Fr. Vicente Dangan, himself carrying an M-16, and ordered the men to strike as a “blocking force” 100 meters farther.

But each witness’s story always served to contradict the other’s version. One testified that he was able to see the armed men at the back of the Fiera because the vehicle’s flaps were folded up. Vicente Pancho, the military’s “star witness” who said he was appointed to head the blocking force, stated however, that the Fiera’s flaps were down. Pancho once worked with Father O’Brien as a cook but was fired after six weeks, for stealing.

Thirty-year old laborer, Lucio Raboy claimed to know Father Gore well but when asked to identify the priest, he instead pointed at Father Michael Martin, also a Columbian missioner but who had no resemblance at all to Father Gore, save for being a Caucasian. Raboy later confessed to the court that if he did not take the witness stand, Captain Galilieo would implicate him in the murder case.

Another witness, who also claimed to know Father O’Brien well, “because the Irish priest had distinctive black spots on his face”, was given the opportunity to examine Father O’Brien. The man could not find the spots. Still another told the court that the priests’ motive for the ambush-slaying must have been “their intention to take over the government of Kabankalan”. But when asked why they did not take over after Sola’s death, the military witness answered that it was because Father Gore went on a holiday!

In spite of what appeared to be obvious lies given by the military witnesses, Judge Emilio Legaspi would not grant bail to the petitioners right away. The prosecution’s request for an extension was accommodated even after it failed to comply with the specified 21-day submission period. The judge said he needed more time to study the case, after which he extended the Christmas break until January 1984.

Their house arrest was a privilege the three priests felt uneasy about. They considered it “royal treatment” compared to the sorry condition of their six co-accused who by then were on their eighth month in prison.

“The six find themselves in their present predicament precisely because they followed the Christian call which we, their priests, had proclaimed to them”, they said. “Frankly, the greatest agony of our last year had not been arrest, internment, harassment, nor false accusations. It has been the fact that we were separated from our co-workers at the very moment when solidarity with them meant so much to us…,” the three priests explained.

In a diplomatic coup of sorts, the Colonel offered them the air-conditioned guesthouse reserved for military officers in Bacolod City instead of keeping them in jail. Unless the Philippine President revoked his house arrest order, Colonel Francisco Agudon insinuated that he could not jail the three.

It was during their stay at the guesthouse that they heard of Judge Legaspi’s lopsided decision of their petition for bail. Father Dangan, who was accused of leading the ‘strike force’ in the ambush, was granted bail, the rest were not. The petition for provision of liberty was also denied.

This received a wave of protests from church circles. “The group was supposed to be charged with conspiracy; therefore the act of the one is the act of all,” the perplexed Bishop Fortich told the weekly, Veritas.

Father Dangan refused to post the required P40,000 bail bond. And after instructing their lawyers not to seek the judge’s reconsideration of their petition, they left their air-conditioned room on January 26, 1984 in the guise of visiting their six co-accused. As soon as they entered the lay leaders’ cell, they refused to leave.

From Malacañang came President Marcos’ announcement that he was revoking his house arrest order, implying in effect that by virtue of the charges the priests were facing, they deserved the imprisonment.

The case of the Negros Nine attracted worldwide attention as it saw the government of President Marcos on the one hand, and that of Australia and Ireland on the other, in a diplomatic struggle. The church of Australia and Ireland also extended their full support to their priests in Negros.

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Bill Hayden, visited Manila and despite press statements that he had other agenda than Father Brian Gore to discuss in Malacañang, it was generally believed that he came to negotiate for the early dismissal of the case. The Ministry of Justice, then under Ricardo Puno, offered the Negros Nine pardon and the two Columban priests, deportation.

Fr. Gore with Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, CFIC of TFDP 

The Negros Nine detected the catch in the offer.  If they gave way to Puno’s offer and accepted the presidential pardon, it was tantamount to admitting the crime. Deportation would not at all absolve them from the unjust charges. They rejected Puno’s offer and let the court decide their fate.

With this collective decision, defense lawyers Jose W. Diokno, Juan Hagad and Francisco Cruz, immediately filed a motion for the dismissal of the case. However, government prosecutor, Lindy Diola, reportedly upon instructions of Minister Puno, opposed this motion. On May 22, Judge Legaspi decided once again in favor of the prosecution although he reiterated his order to release Father Vicente Dangan.

Knowing that it did not have strong evidence to pin down the Negros Nine, a month later the prosecution joined the defense in its second motion for the outright dismissal of the case. This time, Judge Legaspi concurred because, according to him, the prosecution failed to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

Legaspi’s decision aside, it was a popular belief that the termination of the Negros Nine case was the result of many negotiations.

Father Niall O’Brien believed that the Marcos government had yielded to international pressure. The offer of pardon, he said, came when US President Ronald Reagan, on a state visit to Ireland, heard the appeal of the Irish government to exert pressure on Marcos. There was also the consideration of economic and military aid that Marcos was to receive from Australia.

Father Dangan, parish priest of Cabugao, also in Kabankalan, was in fact the slain mayor Sola’s professor, which explains why Legaspi granted him bail first and showed no hesitation to absolve him from the charges. His name appeared on the charge sheet only during the formal filing of the murder charges, presumably after he got involved in a quarrel with a group of powerful people over a land problem.

Among the three priests, Father Gore, who spent 13 of 14 years as a priest in Negros, was the most likely target of military ire. Known for his justice and peace work in the sugarland, Father Gore and his six lay leaders unwittingly challenged the authority of the late mayor and the military when they organized farmers into Basic Christian Communities (BCCs) known as Kristianong Katilingban (KK). In the words of Conrado Muhal, 34, married with two children and full-time KK organizer for Fr. Gore: “We are in jail because the military fear and hate the KKs… In the villages, 100% of the families attend the KK meetings. It makes them one with God and each other. It’s the first program that combines all – the spiritual, economic and political.”

After the filing of the charges against Father Gore, the Commission on Immigration and Deportation summoned him to Manila citing his alleged subversive activities. He said he was not guilty of the charge.

But trouble for Father Gore actually began many years ago. It started in 1979 when a local landlord used a messianic cult leader, Alfredo Salvatorre, to murder a parish lay leader, Lolito Olimpos, a member of the KK, so that he could grab his seven hectares of land. Fr. Gore launched protests against Olimpos’ death as well as against militarization, land grabbing, abusive village officials and corrupt local tax collectors.

Reacting to the upsurge of protests, Mayor Sola sought the help of the government which responded by sending in Constabulary jungle fighters notorious for their abuses. This forced the local church and the military to dialogue. The townspeople say that Sola and the military officials were humiliated in that CLMC dialogue when leaders of a crowd of an estimated 7,000 read to them a long list of the people’s grievances.

Mayor Sola would not let that event pass, and his vengeance was swift. Two parish lay leaders were executed by the jungle fighters and seven farmers, who did not even have KK connections, were buried alive right at the hacienda of Mayor Sola. Farmers who witnessed the burial that night spread the news until it reached the Columban priests in Kabankalan. Bishop Fortich pressured the higher Constabulary officials to investigate the atrocities.

As a result Mayor Sola was indicted for murder, granted bail several months later, was ambushed by the NPA guerillas on March 10, 1982. The then shaky political atmosphere combined with constant military reprisals against the local church, provided the backdrop for the raid on Father Gore’s rectory.

As political prisoners, the Negros Nine did not belong to a privileged class. To authorities, Father Gore was prisoner number 30855, Father O’Brien, 30856 and Father Dangan, 30857. Their cramped cell, with a small window ten feet from the floor, served as their sleeping quarters, comfort room and kitchen.

Reeking of urine, it brought them face to face with the harsh realities of prison life. It was there that Father Gore received threats from intruding armed thugs, got caught in the bloody fight afterwards, and fell unconscious.

But the support of their friends was overwhelming. Father O’Brien said that they received thousands of letters from abroad. Countless visitors would bring food, parishioners would offer them prayers, hundreds were willing to testify on their behalf and about 25,000 people signed a petition for their immediate release.

It was a “beautiful expression of human solidarity”, in the words of Father O’Brien, and a “great education in the context of our struggle”, according to Father Gore.

A Filipina writer further observed: “Gore and O’Brien are lucky. They were given special attention by Mr. Marcos, the highest official in the land. Had they been ordinary Filipinos whose arrests could create no international stir, would the same attention be given them? Would Mr. Marcos even think of proposing to give them freedom? Would the government bend over backwards to ease up irritants?”

Bishop Antonio Fortich, who had consistently shown his support for the Negros Nine and the Kristiyanong Katilingban, concluded: “Fidelity to our program of total human and Christian development has been their only crime”.