Kin, friends of slain girl say she’s no communist rebel By Jeffrey M. Tupas Mindanao Bureau Last updated 07:42pm (Mla time) 04/09/2007 COMPOSTELA VALLEY, Philippines -- Nine-year-old Grecil Galacio had to peep through her neighbors’ windows to watch her favorite noontime TV show. She was the family’s entertainer staging mini-variety shows and belting out melodramatic songs. At home, Pacita Galacio described her daughter as a typical child who had her own episodes of misbehaviors and misfortunes. "She was very playful and naughty. Often times her focus was on playing children's games than being in the classroom that our attention was called by the teacher," Pacita said. Grecil had just finished Grade 2 at the Simsimen Elementary School. She was known by friends as someone who could perfectly enact the dance moves performed every weekday by the female dancers of Wowowee, a noontime TV game show on ABS-CBN. One of her friends, Lea May, said Grecil adored Willie Revillame, Wowowee's host, for his jokes and songs. Last school year, Pacita said, her daughter became a school drop-out after her grades deteriorated because she was hooked on damang-damang (hunting for "fighting" spiders), a craze popular among children, mostly males. But Grecil did well this year and her parents were elated when she announced that she got three awards to be given out during the school’s Recognition Day on March 27 -- Most Neat, Most Clean, and With Honors. Pacita and her husband were proud and excited because it meant pinning three ribbons on their eldest daughter who dreamed of making it big as a nurse or a doctor. But the girl spoiled her parents' excitement this time. On the morning of March 27, she went fishing in the nearby river -- just about 25 meters down their house -- and missed the recognition of honors happening at the school. She told her parents that the event would be in the afternoon and because of the blunder, she confessed that she had actually mixed up the time. Four days later, as Grecil was pacing between the house and the river while warmly accommodating six visitors, two of them women who bathed at the river, a bullet pierced through her right elbow and another bullet blasted her head off. News about Grecil's death on March 31 was still sketchy and unconfirmed. She was initially reported as an 11-year old boy. Later in the afternoon, the gender was changed from boy to girl. The only thing consistent until recently was that the girl was a member of the New People's Army, something that had been vehemently denied by her parents. Brigadier General Carlos Holganza, commander of the military's 101st Infantry Brigade, said he was standing by the report of his men that Grecil was a rebel at this point and that the fatal shooting was part of a legitimate encounter with communist insurgents. He, however, said he was not completely dismissing the possibility that Grecil was only caught in the crossfire. "That she was caught in the crossfire is not impossible. And if she was an NPA rebel, my point is that she is not supposed to be armed or allowed to hold a firearm because she is a minor. I am appealing to the leadership of the NPA to stop using child combatants," Holganza said. "We know for a fact that the NPA is using child combatants and we are tracing a report that another minor was killed in that encounter aside from two other regular cadres," Holgaza added. Holganza said that before the actual encounter, which according to the villagers lasted for about two hours, the girl was seen carrying a long firearm. "The child was sighted carrying a long firearm. The question now is, if she was not an NPA combatant, why would the other NPA combatants allow her to handle the long firearm?" Holganza told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a telephone interview. Asked whether it was possible for a nine-year old girl to carry a long firearm, Holganza said that "even a five-year old kid can do that." The length of an M-16 A2 rifle is exactly 39.60 inches, about the height of Grecil. But anyone who was close to Grecil -- her family and her friends at school -- asserted that the girl was not a communist guerilla. "Nine years old!? NPA? My God! That is an incrimination of the military against my daughter. She was accused of handling a long firearm but how could that be when my daughter does not know anything about guns at all! My daughter is not an NPA cadre," Pacita said. The girl's friend, Lea May, insisted Grecil was her classmate. "You can ask anyone, she was a pupil attending classes in the school. She was in Grade 2," she said. Even the village chair, Eulogio Almasa, said he could not believe the allegations being hurled against Grecil and her family. "One hundred percent she was not a member of the NPA,” he said. Almasa was the one who retrieved the lifeless Grecil in front of their house at around 2 p.m. and brought it to her family who evacuated to the school. He recalled that he never saw a firearm beside the dead girl's body, contrary to the claim of the military. The human rights group Karapatan-Southern Mindanao said the military should be made to answer for the death of a minor and a civilian. Kelly Delgado, secretary general of Karapatan Southern Mindanao, said military’s claim that the child was a communist rebel was a shameless way to justify her death. "It is clear that the claim of the military has no factual and truthful basis. The truth is that Grecil is not a child combatant. The only factual and truthful thing in this case is that the military is making stories again, planting evidence again to justify evil accomplishments -- and this time the victim is Grecil," Delgado said. "This is not the first case that the military killed civilians in the countryside. It is normal for them to treat civilians as their enemy especially in areas which they believed to be strongholds of, or influenced by, the rebel group," Delgado added. This mode of operations, he said, grossly violated the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Geneva Conventions-Protocol 1 and 2 mandating armed parties to distinguish civilians and combatants. "It is clear that the military's willingness to kill innocent civilians continues in order to justify their ends. The ongoing military operations and troop deployments terrorize civilian communities and curtail human rights in the area. We strongly call on the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to investigate and concretely address the killing of Grecil… justice must be served," Delgado said. The military has so far extended P1,100 as cash assistance to Grecil’s family. "My only hope is that the death of my daughter would be given justice, even though we realize that this is very improbable, and that justice is not achievable for people like us who are poor. As of now, our hearts are wracked with grief for our daughter," Pacita said. Copyright 2007 Mindanao Bureau. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.