This document is a summary of the observations made by the Makabayang Makabayang Kilusan Para Isulong ang Katarungan (MAKIISA KA) during their fact-finding mission regarding the multiple reports of human rights violations on the island of Samar. The report of MAKIISA KA underscored the brutality of the ongoing counterinsurgency campaign. Most of the data gathered by the report came from actual victims of military abuse and the survivors of massacres.
Makabayang Kilusan Para Isulong ang Katarungan. Samar: The Continuing Agony of the Land: A Report on the Fact-Finding Mission to Samar, November 3 – 15, 1981.Manila, 1981.
This 24-minute documentary features oral history accounts of the survivors of the Palimbang Massacre that happened in the town of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat on September 24, 1974.
Commission on Human Rights, “Mga Kuwento sa Malisbong,” Youtube video, 24:45, May 6, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FwiPx4VxW4
This documentary contains interviews of Samar residents narrating, in great detail, their harrowing experiences of torture, sexual abuse, rape, forced labor, murder, and mutilation at the hands of the Philippine Constabulary and soldiers. The documentary also tried to explain why Samar had such strong military presence. It all boiled down to the interest of the Marcos’ cronies in the logging and mineral resources of the island.
Commission on Human Rights, “So Why Samar?” YouTube video, 27:33, May 6, 2016.
