Evelio Bellaflor Javier (October 31, 1942 – February 11, 1986) was a Filipino lawyer and politician. He served as governor of the province of Antique and was an opponent of the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. His assassination on February 11, 1986, was one of the causes of the People Power Revolution that overthrew Marcos.
Evelio Javier's brother, Exequiel Javier, served as congressman from 1987 to 1998 and from 2001 to 2010 and governor from 1998 to 2001, and 2010 to 2015. In 2018, Javier was identified as a Motu Proprio human rights violations victim of the Martial Law Era by the Human Rights Victims Claims Board.
Evelio Bellaflor Javier was born on October 31, 1942, in Barangay Lanag (now Evelio Javier), Hamtic, Antique, to Everardo Autajay Javier (Moscoso), a prosecutor and Feliza Bellaflor, a teacher. He finished grade school in San Jose Elementary School in San Jose de Buenavista, Antique and graduated high school with first honors and college in Ateneo de Manila University. There, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Government and he earned his Bachelor of Laws at Ateneo Law School in 1968. He passed the bar examination in 1968 before he became a college professor at the Ateneo, a successful lawyer, and entered politics.
He married Precious Bello Lotilla, daughter of Vicente Lotilla and Angelina Bello of Sibalom, Antique in Manila on December 29, 1968. They first met in 1958 at San Jose Airport and were reintroduced in 1962. They had two sons, Francis Gideon and David Ignatius. Raphael Lotilla, the incumbent Energy Secretary, is his nephew-in-law.
Javier ran for governor of Antique and won in 1971 by one of the largest margins in history, making him, at the age of 28, the Philippines' youngest governor at that time. He did not run again for election in 1980. Instead, he attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1981 on a scholarship, where he earned a Masters in Public Administration.
May 1984 elections; Sibalom Bridge Massacre
In 1984, Javier ran for a seat in the Regular Batasang Pambansa to represent Antique's lone district, but lost. He was known to be a crowd favorite wherein he won the hearts of the people of his province. Arturo Pacificador, a member of the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) party, was his competition who was known to have a lot of powerful people who supported him.
The heat of the competition between the two climaxed during the eve of the elections on May 13, 1984. Seven of Javier's supporters were killed in what came to be known as the Sibalom Bridge Massacre, with one survivor, 55-year-old Luna Sanchez, managing to escape and Javier's opponent Pacificador being spotted at the scene by eyewitnesses. This, along with the massive election fraud, prompted Javier's filing of a protest at the Supreme Court.
During the time of the elections, it was known that there were a lot of methods to compromise the voting results such as vote-buying and giving threats to voters. This did not only happen on the national level of elections, but also on the local elections. In the province of Antique, ballots of those who voted in the towns of Caluya, Cabate, Tibiao, Barbaza, Laua-an, and San Remigio were not placed in the boxes.
Javier became the provincial chairman of UNIDO-Laban. Being a critic of the Marcos administration, he campaigned for his opponent Corazon Aquino and her running mate Salvador Laurel in the 1986 snap elections.
After the counting of the ballots, Pacificador won as the assemblyman for Antique. However, Javier asked to rebuke the decision of the commission due to suspicions of compromising the results of the elections, which the Supreme Court eventually decided in his favor on September 22, 1986, seven months after his death and six months after the end of the Regular Batasang Pambansa.
At 10:00 in the morning of February 11, 1986, three or four masked gunmen riding in a Nissan Patrol jeep went to the New Capitol building in San Jose de Buenavista, Antique. While Javier was talking to friends on the steps in front of the capitol building, the masked gunmen opened fire. Time described the scene:Evelio Javier, director of Corazon Aquino's campaign in the remote province of Antique, was sitting on the lawn in front of the capital building, taking a break from a debate over contested votes in his region, when a white vehicle pulled into the driveway. Without warning, a man in a black knit ski mask leaped out and started shooting. Javier jumped up and ran. Zigzagging across the building's broad concrete plaza, he tried to escape the relentless barrage of bullets. At least one hit its mark. Javier stumbled and fell into a small fishpond.
Somehow, though, the fleeing man struggled to his feet and staggered across the street. By this time, other gunmen had begun to close in. Two approached from the left. Another, brandishing a .45 pistol, appeared in front of a warehouse. Javier ducked into an alley and tried to hide behind an outhouse door. But the masked killer found his prey and finished him off with a burst of gunfire.
The toilet was owned by Leon Pe. The News Today at the 20th anniversary reported, "As the prostrated corpse of Javier lied on the damp cement of the comfort room, another gunman, hankering for a kill, unmasked himself and made a shrill outcry - 'Can you recognize me? Stand up and fight!' Whereupon he fired the coup de grace directed at the head..." His body had 24 bullet wounds.
Time reported that many in Javier's camp blamed Pacificador for the assassination:
Opposition leaders and many residents immediately claimed they knew who was behind the killing: Arturo Pacificador, a Marcos crony who is assistant majority floor leader in the National Assembly. Pacificador has operated like a warlord in Antique, wielding political patronage with his connections in the ruling party and the power he has amassed under Marcos....
He won his seat in the National Assembly by beating Javier in one of the most controversial campaigns of the 1984 election. On the eve of the voting, seven Javier supporters were killed during a shoot-out with Pacificador and his followers. The Ministry of Justice investigated, but never released its findings.
On the day of his burial in San Jose de Buenavista, Antique, thousands of mourners followed his funeral procession to the cemetery wearing yellow shirts with yellow bands tied to their wrists. They played his favorite song, "The Impossible Dream", during the procession to the cemetery. Thousands of Antiquenos there showed their anger and sorrow by crying "Justice for Evelio! We love you!" on the day of his death.