National Secretary Adviser (NSA) Hermogenes Esperon Jr. revealed Friday, March 12, that he has testified in court against Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria "Joma" Sison and 36 others in connection with the Inopacan massacre.
The massacre had to do with the alleged purge of several New People's Army (NPA) rebels in Inopacan, Leyte, as discovered by the military in 2006.
During the continuation of the trial held last March 8 at the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 38, Esperon said he presented his personal account of the Inopacan massacre which transpired during the "Oplan Venereal Disease (VD)" supposedly launched by the CPP -- and executed by its military wing, the NPA -- in the 1980s to purge suspected government symphatizers among the Party's ranks.
"Oplan VD, as it was named in Leyte, claimed the lives of an estimated 300 people as the CPP-NPA attempted to clean its ranks of alleged military informers and counter revolutionaries. It was likewise carried out to neutralize civilians suspected of being uncooperative to the CPP-NPA's plans and agenda," Esperon said in a statement.
Sison, who is in a self-exile in The Hague, Netherlands, and 36 other key figures of the CPP are facing charges for 15 counts of murder for their alleged links to the Inopacan massacre.
Esperon is one of 29 witnesses to the case. He said he personally visited the mass graves of the massacre victims when they were first discovered in Barangay Caulisihan, Inopacan, Leyte on Aug. 31, 2006.
During the discovery, more than 100 sets of human bones were found by the authorities, with only 15 of them identified. This led to the filing of the cases as recommended by Esperon, who was at the time the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
Esperon has since pursued the case against Sison and other top communist officials. He said he presented various pieces of evidence, including a copy of "Suffer Thy Comrades," a book that detailed the interrogations and tortures conducted by the NPA among its members, and written by former rebel and award-winning author Robert Francis Garcia.
He said he also submitted reports obtained by the military during its operations against the CPP-NPA including documents entitled "Mga Aral mula sa Naganap na Impiltrasyon sa Hangganang Quezon-Bicol (Lessons from the Infiltration of Quezon-Bicol)" which was written in 1983 by the Melito Glor Command (MGC), an NPA unit; and "Pangkalahatang Pagbabalik-aral sa Mahahalagang Pangyayari at Pasya (1989-1991) ." According to Esperon, the MGC document "detailed how the MGC investigated, tortured, and buried in mass graves suspected infiltrators" while the second report discussed "the alarm given to territorial units, the internal purgings, and how it affected the organization." The NSA also said he submitted as evidence a 2006 video clip of former Bayan Muna Party-List Rep. Satur Ocampo "acknowledging the purgings while committing that the Party will compensate the victims and the families they left behind." "It is estimated that all the purgings nationwide cost more than 4,000 lives of NPA cadres, fighters, and civilians. I take the position that, as shown by the evidence, the Central Committee Members of the CPP-NPA-NDF (National Democratic Front of the Philippines), led by Jose Ma. Sison, are complicit and directly responsible for the mass murders," Esperon said.
"The blood of these victims lie squarely in the hands of the perpetrators and implementers of these nationwide mass purges, regardless of the NPA's blanket denial of its involvement therein. As my moral and social duty, I shall see to it that those responsible for these heinous crimes are held answerable to the bar of justice," he stressed.