Grecil’s Creek. The creek where Grecil and her brother Gary took a bath moments before the firefight. (davaotoday.com photo)
Grecil’s father, Gregorio, had forbidden the girl and one of her six-year-old brother Gary to bathe at the stream 25 meters away the house. But the two disobeyed their father and went anyway.
When shots rang out, Gregorio said he immediately gathered his childen and found only two. Pacita, who was dressing up for a trip to the town to sell the coconut wine, frantically got out of the house naked waist up.
Now shivering in fear, Pacita tried to sit by the kitchen door but Gregorio pulled her away just as three bullets hit the door. It was at
that point that Gregorio decided they better run. Before leaving, Gregorio looked back to see if Grecil and Gary were emerging from the woods by the creek. But none of them came. He said he desperately wanted to run for the creek but couldn’t because of the firefight.
A neighbor said he heard Gary calling out Grecil’s name down at the creek. Gary later found his way back to family by traversing the
stream. When Pacita asked him where Grecil was, Gary said he lost track of her; he called her name but she did not reply, he said.
Pacita and Gregorio thought Grecil must have went back to the house to see if her family was still there.
The parents only learned of Grecil’s fate while they were at a nearby school, where they and the other villagers had sought refuge. A
neighbor happened by and told them that Grecil was dead. Minutes earlier, according to Pacita, she was hopeful that her child would
turn up safe because a mother and her two children who were separated during the firefight were reunited at the school.
With Her Friends. Friends and neighbors of Grecil attend her wake. (davaotoday.com photo)
When the situation returned to normal at around 1 p.m., soldiers asked Almasa, the village leader and Grecil’s godfather, to fetch Grecil’s
body.
“I was very eager to go together with my councilors and purok leaders,” Almasa told davaotoday.com.
“In the reports,” Almasa said, “the soldiers claimed that Grecil was holding a rifle. But what I saw was only the child’s dead body and
there was no M-16 found near her body.” According to him, Grecil was hit in her right elbow and in the left side of her head — her brains had been blown off.
Soldiers likewise searched Grecil’s house and said they found an M14 there. “Captain, see, you are a witness,” one of the soldiers told Almasa, who was present during the search.
But Almasa told davaotoday.com that “I am firm that the firearm found was owned by the rebel.” He added: “Once a rebel comes to your house, you cannot refuse them, just like when they leave their firearms.”
The military has likewise accused Grecil’s father of being an NPA guerrilla, which, according to the charge, explained the presence of
the guerrillas in their home. “That is not true,” Gregorio told davaotoday.com. “If I were an NPA, I wouldn’t go to the police station
and claim my daughter’s dead body.”
“As far as I know, the Galacio family is not well off and they work hard to make both ends meet,” Almasa said. “If Gregorio is an NPA, what will he feed his family? We all know that a rebel has no salary.”
Neighbors also said that a plastic container Gregorio was using to gather coconut wine was found in in the area where the encounter took place — proof, they said, that he was just an ordinary man trying to support his family.
The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been waging a Maoist revolution in the Philippine countryside for more than three decades now. According to the government, the NPA is 7,000 strong. According to the NPA, they derive support from the poor Filipinos — the masses — especially in the countryside. There have been past incidents when villagers were caught in the crossfire during armed encounters between the government and the NPA.
Gregorio found it unfair for the military to call her daughter an NPA guerrilla. He pointed out that an M-16 rifle was too heavy for her
daughter to carry. A report by Mindanews last week said a picture taken by the military showed Grecil’s dead body to be as tall as the rifle beside her.
“The rifle was planted so that the military would not be embarrassed by what they had done,” said Pacita. “How could a nine- year-old child, so small, carry that?” (Grace S. Uddin/davaotoday.com)
