Karapatang Pantao Main Story

Suspected military hitmen kill father of murdered child Grecil Buya


For seven years, farmer Gregorio Galacio sought justice for his daughter. Instead of attaining justice, he was killed by unidentified men believed to be military agents in his home in Barangay Kahayag, New Bataan, Compostela Valley. Hanimay Suazo, secretary general of Karapatan-Southern Mindanao Region, informed Pinoy Weekly that around 4AM of July 19, 2014, Galacio […]

Gregorio Galacio holds his daughter's school records as he proved her  innocence after the military tagged grecil (right) as  NPA child combatant in 2007. Contributed photo
Gregorio Galacio holds his daughter’s school records to  prove her innocence after the military tagged Grecil (right) as NPA child combatant in 2007. Contributed Photo

For seven years, farmer Gregorio Galacio sought justice for his daughter. Instead of attaining justice, he was killed by unidentified men believed to be military agents in his home in Barangay Kahayag, New Bataan, Compostela Valley.

Hanimay Suazo, secretary general of Karapatan-Southern Mindanao Region, informed Pinoy Weekly that around 4AM of July 19, 2014, Galacio was fatally shot inside his house by at least 10 armed men who surrounded his house. He sustained six gunshot wounds and died on the spot.

According to Suazo, unidentified armed men were seen roaming around the neighborhood and near Galacio’s house weeks before the incident.

Suazo added that Galacio returned home in 2010 in Brgy. Kahayag after hiding from the military who accused him of being a member of the rebel New People’s Army (NPA).

“He told me during the public forum conducted by the national humanitarian and fact finding mission last May that military men are theatening him and the 66th Infantry Battalion (of the Philippine Army) is always ‘inviting’ him to go to their camp,” Suazo said.

The harassment that Galacio went through is similar to other cases of extra-judicial killings, where victims were  publicly accused by the military as being rebels and told to “report” to military camps, said Karapatan.

Victim twice over

Galacio was the father of Grecil Buya (Grecil used her mother’s surname), the 9-year-old child killed in a reported encounter between the NPA and the military in 2007. The military claimed that Grecil was an NPA child combatant

This despite proof from his father that the child attended school.

Human rights groups said that the military tried to justify Grecil’s killing by calling her an NPA combatant. The military later retracted their statement.

Based on various accounts, Grecil was with her younger brother taking a bath in a river near their house
on March 31, 2007 when a gunfight took place near them. Frightened, the siblings ran to their house, but Grecil was shot twice — one in her elbow and one in the head.

The military claimed that Grecil was carrying an M-16 rifle during the firefight.

But relatives, neighbors, barangay officials and her elementary teachers refuted this. In a fact finding mission, human rights and child advocates said they discovered that Grecil was innocent and that the military placed an M-16 rifle beside her dead body before taking her photograph.

Prominent case

Local and international human rights organizations, including the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, took notice of Grecil Buya’s case. After an independent investigation, the military retracted their statement and stated that she was a collateral victim  caught during  a cross-fire.

Buya’s case also put focus on the Philippine child rights advocates’ campaign questioning the definition of “child soldiers” in international human rights parlance. They asked the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict to place the Armed Forces of the Philippines as a “persistent child rights violator”.

“For seven years, Tatay Gorio longed for justice for her daughter’s death. His family’s cry for justice will now be even louder as another state-sponsored killing has taken over their family,” said Jacquiline Ruiz, executive director of Chidren’s Rehabilitation Center, one of the organizations who led the Justice for Grecil Buya Campaign.