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| YEAR 2008 | Serving & Informing Zamboangueños Around The World | SPECIAL EDITION |
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L.A. Zamboanga Times COVINA, CALIF. 91722, USA COPYRIGHT 2008 All Rights Reserved We welcome comments and suggestions. Write to: THE EDITOR  |
  Photo by JOHN L. SHINN III / LAZT Photo Archive The Nov. 14, 1984 assassination of Zamboanga City Mayor Cesar C.Climaco shocked Muslims and Christians accustomed to the violence in war-torn island of Mindanao in southern Philippines. The entire nation mourned his death as if democracy died in the Philippines the day he was murdered. A lone gunman shot Climaco with a .45-caliber pistol at the back of the head, just below his left ear, with the bullet exiting on the mayor's right cheek (see above photo). The Untold Story Behind The 1984 Assassination of Zamboanga City Mayor Cesar Cortez Climaco Article and photos by John L. Shinn III Founder & Editor-in-Chief L.A. Zamboanga Times 
LOS ANGELES --- I've always
wanted to put into writing my experiences
--- and the dangers I faced --- as an investigative reporter in
Zamboanga City in Southern Philippines in the early 1980s. The
assassination of Mayor Cesar C. Climaco on Nov. 14, 1984 has become the
basis
of that recollection. I'm thank-ful just being alive today considering how many of my friends and colleagues in the news media have already been killed in the line of duty by the Philippine military in the last two decades. Many of my pictures featured here have never been published. For the first time since the brutal murder of Mayor Climaco over 20 years ago, I'm sharing with our readers part of my photo collection taken during those chaotic and turbulent times in Zamboanga. I hope that by doing so, we will remember what Mayor Climaco stood for and, most importantly, what he died for. Below is a condensed version of my story: September 4, 1984 (Tuesday) Two months before his death, in early September, I took time off from my job as a reporter for Malaya, the only national opposition newspaper in the country at the time. I visited Zamboanga City for a few days to attend my father's birthday and had the chance to spend an entire morning touring the city with Mayor Climaco along with Peter Dimaguila III, an aspiring reporter and cousin of mine. (NOTE: Peter has recently moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. He founded Sypunins.com in March of 2000). The fact that Mayor Climaco personally drove us around in his official vehicle, a light blue Toyota Land Cruiser, was already in itself an unforge- ttable experience for Peter and me. I remember when I was younger when Mayor Climaco would come to our house to pick up my grandmother Lurding Shinn, who would be visiting from Los Angeles. I would eagerly wait for the mayor by the gate and as soon as he arrives I would escort him into the house and try to start a conversation with him. He often ignored me as if he didn't even hear me talk to him. I did not interpret his non-reaction as being rude. But, anyway, it didn't matter to me then because just having him in our house was already a cause for excitement for me and the entire household. Many years later, after I started working for Malaya in Manila---only months after Ninoy Aquino's assassination at the airport---my publisher Joe Burgos would call me to his office now and then to show me letters he received from Mayor Climaco. And always at the end of his letter to the editor, the mayor would write a short paragraph telling Burgos how much he knew my family, who my grandmother was and that he was proud of me being from Zamboanga and a staffmember of the newspaper. On that September morning, Mayor Climaco brought us to Abong-Abong, a park he was developing into a campground, a family park and also a religious shrine for Catholic devotees. He pointed out to us an area in the park where, he said, he said he planned to build a small village to house the city's homeless. Our next stop was the Boy Scout building above the park. On the side of the building was a mural of a dead Ninoy Aquino sprawled on the tarmac. Above him was an even bigger portrait of the slain senator smiling. Mayor Climaco told me he was going inside the building. He told me that when I see him standing by the window I would, as loud as I can, ask Ninoy: "Ninoy, who killed you?" I did as he had instructed me. The mayor responded by shouting at the top of his voice: "Marcos killed me!" Such was the character of Cesar Climaco. Whacky at times, but sensible at best. On our way back to city hall, everywhere we passed children would line up the streets shouting his name, "Cesar! Cesar! Cesar!" His Toyota was, perhaps the most recognized vehicle in Zamboanga, no doubt about it. And it was only then, after witnessing this overwhelming outpouring of love and respect from the people, that I realized how immensely popular the Old Man was even among the school children. During our excursion to Abong-Abong I told him that I was planning to write my first book and I would like it to be about him so that future generations can study his life---as an inspirational guide to plan their future. He said the idea sounded interesting to him and we agreed to discuss the subject matter again in our next meeting. A few days later, I returned to Manila and went back to work covering the Manila police beat, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, the National Bureau Investigation and other special assignments. Joe Burgos, my publisher, would ocassionally give me special assignments, most often the dangerous ones because, he said, we had similar writing styles. "Don't come back in a coffin," became his official joke as I leave his office.  Photo by MON ACASIO / MALAYA A John L. Shinn III Photo Collection (1984) Malaya's Fearless Messengers of Truth I was 23 years old (top photo at left)and full of energy and idealism when I joined Malaya in Manila in February of 1984. I fled Zamboanga earlier that month after receiving death threats from the military at SouthCom for exposing their corruption activities at the barter trade. With me in this picture is Noel Bartolome (right), also a Malaya repor- ter, eating dinner at the newspaper's kitchen in Quezon City sometime in mid-1984. Noel is now my editor at TODAY, a daily national newspaper in Manila owned by Teddy Boy Locsin for which I'm the Los Angeles-based correspondent. Majority of the Malaya staffers were much younger than I was. What brought all of us together to work for the newspaper was our idealism and sense of duty to inform the nation of what was really going on at the time when only a few brave souls were willing to risk their lives to stand up against Marcos and his notorious military machine. The truth was none of us at Malaya were ever scared of Marcos during those darkest days in our country's history. I suspect it was Marcos who was scared of us because we were willing to die doing our jobs as the nation's messengers of truth. November 14, 1984 (Wednesday) It was the morning of November 14, at around 11 a.m. when I got an urgent call at home. I was staying with my uncle, Willie Atilano in San Antonio Village in Makati, It was my editor Chuchay Molina-Fernandez. She said: "Boboy, Mayor Climaco was shot about half an hour ago and I think he's dead. I want you to come to the office immediately and bring some extra clothes because I will be sending you to Zamboanga to cover the incident." That afternoon, in the company of several local and foreign journalists, I arrived in Zamboanga, the hometown I fled reluctantly nine months earlier because of military threats against me. After exiting the arrival area at the airport, I hailed a tricycle and headed straight to the mayor's residence in Sta. Maria. There I saw thousands of people grieving---from school children to grandmothers, from tricycle drivers to elected officials. Many of them I knew from my childhood days. It then occured to me that I was witnessing history in the making and I was a part of it. In fact, it didn't occur to me until much later on that I was also reporting it for the most widely-read newspaper in the Philippines! Over the next two days I interviewed dozens of people among them the mayor's widow and his children, friends and relatives. It didn't take me long to piece together the missing links and conclude that the military was behind the mayor's brutal murder. Even his widow, Julpha, said so publicly. The day after the mayor was killed, then Pres. Ferdinand Marcos sent his Constabulary chief, Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos to Zamboanga to start an investigation. A three-man panel composed of members from the Batasan Pambansa (the Legislative Assembly) headed by Teodulo Natividad and assisted by Ramon Mitra and Romy Jalosjos, was also dispatched to Zamboanga City to conduct an independent inquiry into the murder which by now was already world news. In my dispatches to Manila since the day of my arrival, I reported that the mayor's family did not believe the military version of the killing: that the Alih brothers, all members of the city's police and Constabulary forces, killed the mayor to avenge the killing of their older brother, police Capt. Abdurazal Alih, who was ambushed at a military checkpoint near the mayor's house a month earlier. The Climacos made it clear they did not believe the Alihs killed the mayor. The Climaco family even went as far as making public statements about their suspicion that it was the military---not the Alihs---who was behind the mayor's assassination. And that the Alihs were simply being used as 'scape- goats' to cover up military involvement . A few days after the popular mayor's death, there were mounting clamor among the people to have the entire top military command at Southern Command (SouthCom) replaced. I wrote an article saying that the Climacos had collected over 50,000 signatures from citiznes demanding the imme- diate transfer of all top ranking military officers assigned at SouthCom. The military even sent an emmisary to ask me for a copy of the signatures. I told them I didn't know who had them, but I confirmed seeing a copy of the signatures.  Photo by JOHN L. SHINN III / LAZT Gen. Castro viewing Mayor Climaco's remains I took this photo around 7:30 pm on the day Mayor Climaco was killed when SouthCom chief Maj. Gen. Delfin C. Castro (foreground) and his wife (left) came to the Climaco residence in Sta. Maria to view the mayor's remains. At center is Climaco's widow, Julpha. She barely spoke to Gen. Castro even after he offered her his condolences. And, without saying a word, she led the general and his wife to the coffin. It was a very awkward moment to watch. November 22, 1984 (Thursday) This day Mayor Climaco was laid to rest in Abong-Abong, a large and blissful park overlooking the city and the ocean. More than 200,000 people ---young and old, from all walks of life--- trekked the seven-kilometer distance from City Hall to the park despite the sweltering heat to say their last farewell to the fiesty but gentle and caring mayor they knew all too well. Mayor Climaco was close to their hearts---even the school children could have told you that. The downtown area was almost completely deserted. Zamboanga City became a virtual ghost town that day. At the park, deployed troops watched the activity from afar. There was no feeling or outburst of anger among the thousands who came this day to pay their last respects to Mayor Climaco---only sorrow and disbelief. The same mayor they once revered as a "Living Legend" is now dead.  Photo by JOHN L. SHINN III / LAZT Photo Archive More than 200,000 people from all walks of life, young and old, trekked seven kilometers from downtown to Abong-Abong in upper Pasonanca where Mayor Cesar C. Climaco was finally laid to rest. That day, the city was nearly deserted and looked like a virtual ghost town. For many, it was a day they will remember for the rest of their lives. November 25, 1984 (Sunday) The day was Nov. 25. The Alihs had just eaten lunch and the kids started to doze off for their afternoon siesta. Many of their relatives, fearing that the military would arrest the Alih brothers, went to the Alih family compound on Camino Nuevo to join them and show their support. Around 12:45 p.m., I was on a tricycle outside Peter Dimaguila's house on Gov. Camins Road (near Edwin Andrews Air Base) waiting for him to come out. We had already planned to go to a friend's house in St. Ignatius Village to record some music audio tapes. When Peter came out we saw from a distance a convoy of military armored personnel carriers (APCs), six-by-six trucks and Land Rover jeeps with head-lights on --- all filled with combat-ready Marines --- heading towards Veterans Avenue from Gov. Camins Road.  Photo by JOHN L. SHINN III / LAZT The convoy on the way to the Alih compound This was part of the military convoy Peter Dimaguila and I saw coming from the direction of Moret Field as they headed toward Veterans Avenue from Governor Camins Avenue. They were on their way to the neighborhood in Camino Nuevo where the Alih compound was located to conduct "zoning operations." This was one of the several pictures I took of the convoy. Sensing that something was amiss, I told the tricycle driver to race after the convoy. As we reached the area where the Atin-Atin restaurant used to be (this is before reaching the Sta. Cruz market), we suddenly heard a burst of automatic gunfire coming from the direction of the Alih compound in Camino Nuevo. (When I analyze the chain of events now, I estimate that the military convoy must have been somewhere in the vicinity of Doctor's Hospital when the shooting started.) As the tricycle we were riding reached the corner of Veterans Avenue and Camino Nuevo, there was already heavy shooting from both sides. Even as we were dodging the bullets, Peter and I continued running towards to Alih compound---first in the middle of the street then the sidewalk which was safer. Instinctively I started taking pictures of what I was witnessing and what was happening in front of me. After finding a good cover Peter started taking pictures too. At one point I saw Peter crawling on the sidewalk then taking cover behind a parked motorcycle across the street from the Alih compound. (Peter and I left all our vinyl records---about 150 of them---with the tricycle driver as we sprinted toward the Alih compound. "Nong, bisia anay se de amun mana placa ha?" I yelled at him as we jumped out of his tricycle. I didn't even bother to wait for him to answer me back. I really didn't care if he sped off with all our records even though it was worth a small fortune. The events before us was more important now. More than four hours later, the tricycle driver was still around along with hundreds of other mirons and usiosos.) I decided to stay on the opposite side of the street where Peter had positioned himself. I was on the same side where the compound was. Many of the Marines took cover on this side to stay out of the line of fire. The scene was like straight out of a movie production set only this one is for real. Peter and I tried to get closer to the shooting and we did. About an hour later, a ceasefire was called by the military so they could retrieve their dead and wounded. The military then set up a perimeter in the area to keep civilians out and also to prevent the Alihs from escaping. I saw two or three dead soldiers lying in the middle of the street in front of the entrance to the Alih compound. One of them was a nurse who was seriously injured and was now lying underneath a military medevac jeep. He could have easily bled to death if the ceasefire was not called. Another soldier laid motionless on his back near the entrance to the Alih compound---his legs twisted in an awkward position. Around his waist was a belt of unspent M-203 ammunition. We later learned that he was one of those who died instantly when the first shots were fired at the Marines by the Alih group. The soldier apparently accidentally fired the M-203 he was carrying when he got hit. The M-203 shell landed on the roof of one of the grade school classrooms inside the Ateneo campus, a few hundreds yards away. The next day, we went to inspect the damage to the classroom from the roof of the building. Luckily, it was a Sunday and there were no students in class.  Photo by JOHN L. SHINN III / LAZT A military 'zoning operation' turned into bloody gunbattle When the smoke cleared after the one-hour gunbattle between the Alihs and the Philippine Marines, Camino Nuevo was littered with spent ammo shells and dead and wounded soldiers. "Parang sine" was how one bystander described the gunbattle. The photos I took that day reminded me of the movie "Salvador" which starred Gene Hackman and Nick Nolte. Col. Guerzon, chief of the Zamboanga District Command (Zamdiscom), a combined local Police-Philippine Constabulary unit and the commanding officer of the Alih brothers, offered to talk the Alihs into surrendering. The military officer in command, a Marines named Major Blanco, allowed Col. Guerzon to go into the compound and negotiate with the Alihs. Word got out that Col. Guerzon decided to stay inside with the Alihs as he continued to persuade them to give up peacefully. The Marines became agigated when Guerzon's two-way radio battery died. It was already getting dark by then. Major Blanco immediately drew up a plan on a large piece of paper on the hood of a military jeep. The Marines will use tanks and two huge amphibious vehicles to level the compound. Nightfall was fast approaching and the Marines were running out of time and didn't seem to know what to do next. I was standing near Major Blanco when I heard him discussing his plan with some junior officers at the scene. I interrupted him to say that I visited the compound the day before and saw as many as 40 children in there with ages ranging from six months old to 10 years old. "Do you want to be responsible for the murders of these children?" I asked the major. He didn't respond to my question. Minutes later, Major Blanco changed his mind and I found out that he called off the plan to assault the Alih compound and instead decided to wait till daybreak. This was my 11th day covering the Climaco assassination. I have had very little sleep and rest since my arrival from Manila. Peter was just as weary as I was. We were somewhat relieved the Marines did not push through with their plan to assault and level the Alih compound. It would have been a massacre of global magnitude. We went home just as darkness was setting in. The night went by uneventfully. All was quiet in and outside the Alih compound. AUTHOR'S NOTE: That Friday morning, Nov. 23 --- or two days before the shootout --- I visited the compound with Assemblyman Ramon Mitra and Sammy Santos, a high school classmate of mine at Ateneo and a news media colleague who is now an editor at the Philippine Star in Manila. Mitra went there to see how the Alihs were doing and Sammy and I decided to go along with him. Mitra mentioned to Rizal of the possibility that the military would move in to arrest them for the mayor's murder as soon as all the journalists leave the city for Manila that afternoon. The Alihs again professed their innocence, but vowed to fight to death---against any military effort to arrest them---if only to prove they had nothing to do with the mayor's murder. The military seemed equally determined to pin the mayor's killing on them. We saw how serious---and scared---Rizal was, but there was nothing we could have done to help them. There was only sadness in Mitra's face when we left the compound. November 26, 1984 (Monday) Very early on this Monday, the Alihs peacefully surrendered to Col. Guerzon. As Peter and I were walking towards the Alih compound we saw a convoy of of several vehicles leaving the area. The Alihs must have already surrendered, I remember mumbling to myself. I asked the driver of one of the vehicles that passed by me where they were going and a passenger said they were proceeding to the PC headquarters in Cawa-Cawa. Across the street from me I saw Peter trying to get a good shot of the leaving vehicles. I shouted for Peter to follow me as I climbed and boarded one of the mini buses as it slowed down to pass a military checkpoint. Unable to follow me, Peter jumped into the next vehicle. The ride to the PC headquarters took only about five minutes. There I interviewed Col. Guerzon and the Alih brothers. The children were brought to the mosque inside the compound. When I went there to check on them I counted a total of 41 children---many of them too young to even know what was going on. It was during this interview Rizal told me that a group of armed men stopped in front of their compound and sprayed their house with automatic gunfire as they were about to take their siesta. Rizal said all the men in their family --- heavily-armed and ready to protect themselves --- jumped from the second floor window of their house when the shooting stopped momentarily. Seconds later---after recovering from the initial shock of the attack---the Alihs regrouped, got their guns ready just as the Marines were arriving at the entrance of the compound----probably unaware what happened before they got there. When they saw the Marines coming, Rizal said, they opened fire at them thinking this was the same group that fired at them a few minutes earlier. NOTE: Using walkie-talkies, the U-2 agents monitored the movement of the Marines convoy and knew the exact location convoy from the moment they left Camp Navarro in Calarian that fateful afternoon. On board two vehciles, several heavily-armed U-2 agents---just prior to the arrival of the Marines in front of the Alih compound---sprayed the Alih residence from the street at Camino Nuevo with automatic gunfire. The Marines arrived at the scene not knowing that a group of U-2 agents came by earlier and peppered the Alih residence with bullets fired from automatic rifles. The fact that several Marines were killed only showed us how they were caught by surprise by the Alihs. They were not expecting any hostile fire as it was only supposed to be a routine "zoning operation." A zoning operation is when the military cordons off a certain area or neighborhood to do a house-to-house search for unregistered firearms and suspected rebels and criminal elements. If the Alihs shot back at the arriving Marines thinking it was the same group who fired at them earlier, the intended outcome would result in the deaths of many innocent Marines. The Alihs will then be arrested and jailed to stand trial for multiple murders. It was indeed an elaborate and well-timed strategy and only one officer is capable of such a thing. His name is Col. Rolando Q. de Guzman, SouthCom's (U-2) intelligence chief. Once imprisoned, the Alihs will ultimately lose control of several lucrative illegal business activities at the local wharf where Col. de Guzman and his U-2 thugs were also involved in smuggling and extortion activities. As time went by, it became necessary to get rid of the Alihs and Mayor Climaco who continued to expose many of the military's illegal activities at the pier involving Col. de Guzman's goons. The presence of the heavily-armed Alih clan asserting their control at the pier often led to near shootouts with Col. de Guzman's para-military goons. Driven by greed, his incurable addiction to gambling and insatiable appetite for young women, Col. de Guzman --- one of the founders of the Monkeys, a notorious band of renegade soldiers who terrorized farmers in Central Luzon in the '60s and '70s --- had carefully planned the Alih and Climaco murders in a desperate move to wrest control of the local wharf from the Alih family. Once the Alihs are out of the picture, Col. de Guzman and his group of corrupt military officers, will have gained complete control of many of the illegal activities at the pier which generated hundreds and millions of pesos each month in easy money. This explains where Col. de Guzman got his money to gamble like a drunken haciendero at the local casino nightly. No wonder Col. De Guzman can gamble away and lose as much as 200,000 pesos a night---when his monthly salary from the military was only 6,000 pesos a month! Col. De Guzman --- the brilliant military strategist that he was had planned the entire scenario starting with the ambush of police Capt. Alih on the night of Oct. 11 near the mayor's residence, to the shooting of Mayor Climaco more than a month later on Nov. 14 just a few steps from the Alih compound and eventually the shootout between the Alihs and the Marines in Camino Nuevo on Nov. 25. Col. De Guzman was already out-of-control that even his superior officer, SouthCom Chief Maj. Gen. Delfin C. Castro, did not want to interfere with any of his criminal activites. Even after Col. de Guzman (already promoted to Northern Luzon Command chief) was shot and killed in July 7, 1991 by police and NBI undercover agents at the Magallanes Shopping Center in Manila while trying to sell them 10 kilos of high-grade China White heroin --- Gen. Castro kept his mouth shut till the end. November 28, 1984 (Wednesday) On Nov. 28, two weeks after Mayor Climaco was murdered, I returned to Manila partly because Joe Burgos, my publisher, and my editors feared for my safety. It was not until I reached the office in Quezon City that same night I learned that our headline story for the next day was bombshell. Mayor Climaco wrote a letter to Pres. Marcos and Gen. Ramos more than a month before his death detailing his fears and suspicion of a plot by the military command in the city to kill him. It turns out Malaya got hold of a copy of that letter which then became the basis of our articles---since the day the mayor was murdered---that it was the military who ordered the mayor killed not the Alih brothers. That December, in Manila, I was sought by a friend of my dad's, a Muslim, who was a SouthCom military asset. He left word at Alavar's Seafood restaurant (then the favorite watering hole of Malaya staffers) to contact him. He told me that he learned there were six to 8 goons from U-2 who were sent to Manila look for me and to assassinate me. After consulting Joe Burgos, my father agreed that it was best that I left the country immediately. My safety was their main concern. April 3, 1985 (Wednesday) On April 3, 1985, two of my uncle's military aides (both of them captain in rank), escorted me to the door of Thai Air Ways Flight 745. My uncle instructed them to make sure they see me get on the plane---no matter what. And they really made sure I did board my flight. A day later, after an overnight stay in Narita, Japan, I arrived in Los Angeles on a self-imposed exile and to start a new life. The rest is history.  JOHN L. SHINN III Photo Collection (1985) Safe & Sound: The day I arrived in Los Angeles This photo was taken the day I arrived in Los Angeles on April 3, 1985 after I fled the Philippines to live in exile in America. My grandmother, Lurding Shinn, (left) was overjoyed to see me and so were the large Shinn clan in L.A. From left: my grandmother Lurding, my dad's sister Lilia Lucas, me, Raymond Shinn, my dad's younger brother, and Paely Enriquez, an uncle of mine. CLICK HERE TO GO TO PAGE 2 COPYRIGHT 2003 | All Rights Reserved | L.A. Zamboanga Times |