Japan Group Releases Report on Killings in Philippines

Background of the Victim

Grecil’s father, Gregorio Galacio, and mother, Virginia Buya were farmers making banana and coconut wine in Purok 6, Barangay Kahayag in New Bataan in Compostela Valley Province, Mindanao. The family was living in peace. Their daughter, Grecil, was an elementary school student. While helping with her mother’s work, she was enjoying studying at school. According to Gregorio, the father of Gregorio was paramilitary and was killed by the NPA. Because of this tragedy, the family was far from sympathetic to the NPA.

Circumstances of the Killing

At around 8am on March 31, 2007, five people carrying guns went to their place and asked permission to leave their belongings around the house and take a bath in the river near to the family’s house. Gregorio and Virginia recognized them as NPA, from their uniforms and their carrying arms.

Gregorio said OK, since he thought they were also human beings. Meanwhile, the daughter Grecil and her six-year-old brother Gary asked their parents for permission to take a bath at the nearby river. After their father gave his permission, Grecil and Gary went ahead to the river before the NPA men took their bath. Instead of taking a bath, Grecil and Gary were just playing with water in the river. The family and the NPA did not know each other at all. Three NPA members were taking a bath far from the children while some were resting around Gregorio’s house.

At around 8:30am, the military, members of the 28th and 67th Infantry Brigade based in Compostella Valley, came from the mountain and started firing around the house. At the time, Virginia was in the house alone, Gregorio was working at the top of a coconut tree and the two kids were in the river. The father was on the farm and the mother was changing her clothes inside the house. Suddenly they heard firing. When Gregorio heard the gunshots, he ran into the house, took his wife and ran away together. The NPA members around the house also ran away.

As Gary heard gunfire he called out to his older sister. After hearing no response he ran after his parents without his sister and successfully escaped. The parents believed that Grecil also followed them. Later they noticed Grecil could not follow them.

The family except Grecil ran away to a relative’s house and then went to the Barangay hall. As the Barangay Captain Eulogio Almasa noticed the fighting, he told the family to stay in the hall, and went to the area of the family’s house and helped other people to evacuate. Along the way, the military told the Barangay Captain that there was a dead body.

The military told the captain that there was a NPA child’s dead body in front of a house. When the captain arrived at Gregorio’s house, he found Grecil’s body.

Grecil’s remains were found a few meters from the house. She was hit on the right elbow and she died by a fatal hit to the left side of her head.

The military accused Grecil of being an NPA child solider. In their investigation, they took a picture of her remains lying next to an M16 rifle loaded with several kilos of ammunition. This is contradictory to the statements of neighbors and Captain Almasa, which stated that when they saw her body there was no rifle or ammunition. In the picture, the M16 rifle appeared to be the same height as Grecil and because the rifle was fully loaded, it would weigh several kilos, which makes it questionable that a child of Grecil’s size could handle such a weapon. Also, her father said that “Grecil was going to school, here is the school ID. NPA child soldiers do not go to school”.

Incident after the Killing

At 2pm on the same day, Gregorio was informed that he could see her daughter in the military-police station. When he visited the military-police station with Barangay captain, he saw Grecil’s dead body outside of the police station on the ground. Gregorio cried and shouted, and tried to embrace her. However, he was not allowed to even touch her.

Instead, he was interrogated for 4 hours. The military was accusing him of being an NPA member. After the prolonged interrogation, the family could get the body at 6pm. The body was left in the sun during the 4-hour interrogation. The military finally let him go and get her body. There has been no apology by the military. The family believed that military killed their daughter.

Gregorio said, “Some of military attended her funeral. We never approached them in the funeral. However, one solider approached Gary and said, ‘Please do not think all military is bad people. Actually, when a soldier was going to kill your sister, I asked him to stop, because she was child. But he did not stop….’ Since then, we believed the military killed her.”96