Family of ex-army slain in Boracay seeks justice
Soldiers and reservists carry and accompany the
remains of former Army Sgt. Vicente Maming
before the funeral procession.
BORACAY ISLAND—For 23 years he fought hard and held the line fighting Moro rebels in Mindanao.
He was wounded four times in battle and awarded six citations and medals including the Gold Cross, the third highest military award for gallantry in action.
But former Staff Sergeant Vicente Maming, 43, of the Army's 37thInfantry Battalion, wanted to retire early and decided to shed off his combat fatigue uniform in January last year to live peacefully with his family in his native Boracay Island.
On January 14, Maming fell in a hail of bullets from security guards hired by a company claiming ownership over a land he believed belonged to his ancestors.
"After everything that he has been through, I never imagined that he would die here and in this way," Maming's widow Jocelyn said on Thursday before the remains of her husband was laid to rest.
Maming died of 14 gunshot wounds after he shot it out with security guards of a lot in Sitio Cagban in Barangay Manoc Manoc, one of the three villages of the island.
The guards belong to the Triple A security agency hired by the Polychem Industries Inc., a corporation controlled by the family of Aklan Gov. Carlito Marquez
A 15-year-old boy, Alden Odencio, was wounded in the crossfire.
Confrontation
Maming, armed with a handgun, entered the compound at around 4 a.m. that day with 20 of his relatives and insisted that he owned the property that was also being claimed by the company.
The four guards left after negotiations but returned later in the afternoon with reinforcements. Maming was working on a bamboo and barbed wire fence over the 3,000-square meter property when the guards came.
Jocelyn said her husband was killed "in a treacherous manner," pointing out that most of her husband's wounds were at the back.
"He is used to combat and if he was facing his assailants, he would have taken at least one of them down," she said.
It was the second confrontation between Maming's family and the security guards. Last year, the guards demolished two houses that Maming built on the property. The former soldiers and his cousin-in-law Jose de Vera were also allegedly manhandled.
Senior Insp. Auxilio Dador, chief of the Boracay Special Tourist Protection Office (BSTPO), said they have filed a murder complaint before the Aklan Provincial Prosecutors Office against 20 security guards and a policeman assigned at the Altavas police station in the Aklan mainland.
The police have also sealed the property from the conflicting parties.
Land disputes
The killing has shocked the community here even as disputes over prized lots have become more common as tourism has grown into a P10-billion industry.
It has also highlighted the long simmering tension and conflict between families and between locals and giant investors over possession of properties.
A day before Maming died, a shootout also erupted between guards hired by the Tupas and Tapus families in Barangay Balabag at the northern end of the 1,000-hectare island-resort.
The families who are disputing ownership over a 2-hectare property hired around 20 security guards each who were involved in the clash.
No one was wounded but the exchange of gunfire lasted for around 45 minutes.
Driven by increasing prices of lots, there is a scramble for ownership and claims even for the smallest lots. The prices of lot range from P30,000 per square meter for inland properties and up to P50,000 per square per meter for those along the famous white beach.
Ownership or rights over properties are muddled and easily a source of conflict because claimants only have tax declarations as proof of ownership.
Private ownership of lots on the island is technically illegal under Proclamation 1801 issued by the late President Ferdinand Marcos on Nov. 10, 1978, which declared Boracay and other islands and coves as tourist and marine zones and were categorized as public lands.
But a significant portion of the island is titled. Most of the business owners and residents have been occupying other lots for around 30 years through tax declarations.
Maming's claim is based on a tax declaration dating back to 1945 in the name of his grandfather Diego Maming.
Justice
Jocelyn said they could not understand why the land which her husband believed to belong to his family was not theirs anymore.
In an earlier interview Governor Marquez said the rights over the land had already been transferred to his children's company.
But at his funeral yesterday, around 200 of his relatives and friends carried streamers demanding justice
Soldiers and reservists accompanied the funeral procession from the family compound at Sitio Bantud in Manoc-Manoc.
He was given a 21-gun salute by soldiers belonging to the 47thInfantry Battalion.
"He told me that he will make sure that his family's land stays with us even if he died fighting for it. And he had wanted to be buried on it," said Jocelyn.
But Maming got neither of these two wishes. He was buried at the barangay cemetery a few kilometres from the island's famous powdery beach and crystal waters.