Bayan activist shot dead
Gunman kills victim in front of 12-yr-old son
By Nestor P. Burgos Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer – www.inquirer.net
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
ILOILO CITY—It seemed like any other school day. Fernando Baldomero was getting his motorcycle ready to bring his 12-year-old son to school just a kilometer away.
But it was a different Monday morning.
As the provincial coordinator of the party-list group Bayan Muna and his son were about to drive away, an unidentified man pointed a gun at Baldomero, who quickly covered his son and tried to parry the gun away.
The gunman was quicker. He repeatedly shot Baldomero in front of the boy, then fled on a motorcycle with no license plate and driven by another suspect.
The first killing of a political activist under the 5-day-old Aquino administration was grimly in the books.
Baldomero, 61, was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Kalibo, Aklan, after sustaining two gunshot wounds in the head and neck, Chief Insp. Aden Lagradante, Kalibo police chief, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a phone interview.
Baldomero was not just a local Bayan Muna leader. He was also a reelected councilor of Lezo town. Being the municipal coordinator of the Liberal Party, he ran under the LP banner in the recent elections and was, thus, also a party mate of President Benigno Aquino III.
He was also previously accused by the military and the police of links with the communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.
Baldomero was shot at around 6:30 a.m. outside his rented house in a residential compound at Barangay Estancia in Kalibo, capital town of Aklan province.
It was the second attack on him in a little over three months.
Times haven’t changed
Condemnation of the murder was swift and Malacañang promised to bring the killers to justice.
A human rights group said Mr. Aquino should be more concerned about extrajudicial killings than about “wangwangs” (car sirens).
Baldomero was killed two days after an unidentified man armed with a shotgun killed former radio broadcaster Jose Daguio, 72, in his yard in Tabuk, Kalinga.
It’s as if times haven’t changed.
Even during the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, activists were virtual open targets for assassins. During Arroyo’s nine-year term, there were at least 1,190 extrajudicial killings, according to a report of the human rights group Karapatan, as of last April.
The killings were condemned in the United Nations, United States and Europe.
Lagradante said the assailants were apparently waiting for Baldomero to come out from the compound. Three empty shells believed to be from a .45 cal. pistol were recovered from the scene.
The police were still determining the identities of the assailants. Lagradante said the killing could be related to an earlier attack on Baldomero.
Unfazed by threats
On March 19, two motorcycle-riding men lobbed two grenades at Baldomero’s ancestral house in nearby Lezo town. No one was injured in the blasts and Baldomero was not in the house at the time.
Baldomero told the Inquirer after that attack that he believed it was part of continued assaults on activists and members of progressive party-list groups.
Baldomero’s elder son, Ernan, a freelance journalist in Aklan, said in a phone interview: “We knew the risks involved in his work. We are still in shock, especially my brother, who saw our father murdered.”
He said his father had been continuously threatened for his involvement with activist groups.
“He kept his silence ... because he believed that what he was fighting for was right,” Ernan said.
Baldomero was detained for four months in 2005 after the police and military tagged him as a member of an NPA unit blamed for attacks on policemen and soldiers in Iloilo. The courts dismissed the cases against him for lack of evidence.
In 2007, the police also charged him, along with suspected NPA rebels, with the killing of an Iloilo farmer whom the rebels had accused of being an informer. Baldomero denied the accusation.
Baldomero served his first term as town councilor from 2007 to 2010. He won a second term in the May elections with the third highest number of votes.
Malacañang vowed swift justice for Baldomero and the slain ex-broadcaster.
Scrap ‘Bantay Laya’
Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said curbing extrajudicial killings was a top priority of Mr. Aquino. He said Justice Secretary Leila de Lima had been instructed to lead the investigation.
“We promise equal justice for all,” he said.
Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño, whose family hails from Kalibo, said on hearing of Baldomero’s murder: “We demand an immediate and thorough investigation, particularly the involvement of military and military-backed death squads.”
He challenged the Aquino administration to prove things have changed since the Arroyo presidency by giving justice to Baldomero and stopping extrajudicial killings.
Casiño also called on Mr. Aquino to suspend the government’s counterinsurgency program “Oplan Bantay Laya III” and its policy of tagging leftist activists as “enemies of the state.”
He said the policy had led to systematic extrajudicial killings and “enforced disappearances” during Arroyo’s time.
Death squads
Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said the group was looking into the possible military involvement in the murder of Baldomero.
Former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said Mr. Aquino had the power to stop the attacks on activists.
“President Aquino should rein in the military and their death squads to put an end to the impunity that was nurtured by his despised predecessor,” Ocampo said.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) urged Mr. Aquino “to use the full force of the law to arrest the perpetrators.”
“Mr. Aquino must send a clear message to state security forces that these killings have to end and perpetrators will be prosecuted. Heads must roll in the (Armed Forces),” said Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr.
Karapatan chair Marie Hilao-Enriquez said that more than banning “wangwangs,” Mr. Aquino should make a “categorical order to put an end to the atrocities of Oplan Bantay Laya.”
Enriquez feared that the absence of a categorical statement from Mr. Aquino, as well as the declaration by new AFP Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ricardo David of a three-year timetable to end insurgency, would mean continuation of Arroyo’s counterinsurgency campaign.
Reyes said Mr. Aquino should “speak out now,” adding that he could order David to relieve commanders in areas where killings had occurred “to serve as a lesson to future offenders.”
In a statement, Amnesty International said the Aquino administration should “ensure that state security forces are not immune from investigation and prosecution for political killings and enforced disappearances.”
Amnesty International urged Secretary De Lima to end the culture of impunity among security forces and establish a working group to review all reported cases of extrajudicial killings and disappearances since 2000 to ensure prosecution of the perpetrators.
“In the Philippines, members of the military, police, state-supported militias and private armies, as well as insurgent groups, have literally been allowed to get away with murder,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of the human rights watchdog. With reports from Christian V. Esguerra, Leila B. Salaverria, Nikko Dizon, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
Activist killed in Aklan
By Cecille Suerte Felipe
The Philippine Star – www.philstar.com
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
MANILA, Philippines - A day after a journalist was killed in Tabuk City in Nueva Vizcaya, a coordinator of militant group Bayan Muna was shot dead yesterday morning in Kalibo town in Aklan.
Fernando Baldomero, a municipal councilor of Lezo, Aklan and at the same time provincial coordinator of the Makabayan Coalition, is the first militant killed since President Aquino was sworn into office on June 30.
An attempt was made on Baldomero’s life early this year when a grenade was thrown at his house in Barangay Sta. Cruz Bigaa, Lezo, Aklan by two men on a motorcycle.
According to initial reports, Baldomero was in front of his house trying to start his motorcycle to bring his child to school when he was shot by two unidentified men.
The gunmen, armed with a 9mm pistol and long firearms, fled on a black motorcycle with no license plates.
Senior Superintendent Epifanio Bragais, director of the Aklan Provincial Police, said Baldomero suffered gunshot wounds in his head and neck and was brought to a hospital but was declared dead on arrival.
The militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), through secretary-general Renato Reyes, condemned the killing and asked the President to “use the full force of the law to arrest the perpetrators.”
Reyes said the President must send a clear message to state security forces that these killings have to end and perpetrators will be prosecuted.
“Heads must roll in the AFP, otherwise the climate of impunity will continue,” Reyes said.
Karapatan chair Marie Hilao-Enriquez, on the other hand, said the incident follows the announcement of the new three-year counter-insurgency plan by the newly installed Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Lt. Gen. Ricardo David.
Established in 1995, Karapatan monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, and assists and defends victims.
“Neither Gen. David nor President Noynoy have called to stop the killings and to end the culture of impunity that still prevails,” Enriquez said.
“The lack of declaration from President Noynoy to stop the killings and impunity, coupled by Gen. David’s pronouncement of another deadline to end insurgency, and this new wave of political killings, signals that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, is still enforced under Mr. Aquino’s term and has not let up on targeting progressive individuals,” Enriquez said.
She also noted that in June, seven individuals were killed, including an Ampatuan massacre witness, and last week, a former lawyer of the Mangudadatus was ambushed.
“We are concerned that the calls for justice and the ending of impunity will only fall on deaf ears,” expressed Enriquez.
“More than the ban on wang-wang, President Aquino must also issue a categorical order to stop the culture of impunity and put to end the atrocities of Oplan Bantay Laya implemented by the AFP.”
Like Bayan, Karapatan calls on the present administration to immediately conduct an investigation, and to arrest and punish the perpetrators of the Baldomero killing.
“The total and complete justice announcement of Aquino is nothing if the political killing and impunity are still prevalent and continuing,” Enriquez concluded.
Last week, newly appointed Justice Secretary Leila de Lima vowed to put an end to the unexplained killings that have been widely criticized by other governments and human rights groups.
Karapatan has said that over 900 activists critical of government, including students and labor leaders, have been killed in the past nine years.
The assassinations were normally carried out by gunmen on motorcycles.
A long list of victims
In its annual report on human rights worldwide in March, the US State Department cited such killings in the Philippines during the tenure of former president Arroyo.
It mentioned “arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings by elements of the security services and political killings, including killings of journalists, by a variety of actors.”
In 2007, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, Philip Alston, and a Philippine government fact-finding mission blamed the military for many of the killings. The military has consistently denied the accusations.
Mrs. Arroyo created Task Force Usig in 2006, at the height of media and militant killings, to investigate and go after perpetrators and ensure their prosecution.
Task Force Usig, in its investigation, has recorded a total of 119 validated cases of slain militants/activists since 2001.
Of these cases, 64 were filed before the Prosecutor’s Office or with appropriate courts, 54 are under investigation, and one was considered closed.
Out of the 64 cases filed, 21 were perpetrated by the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA), 12 cases involved military and paramilitary elements as suspects, four involved civilians who allegedly are linked to the military, 26 cases were perpetrated by civilians, and another involved police personnel.
As to the status of the 64 cases, 43 were already filed in court and 21 cases are still pending at the Prosecutor’s Office.
There were 46 identified suspects involved in the killings of militants/activists, 17 of whom were arrested, resulting in one conviction, while six were already dead, three have surrendered, one is under custody and 19 are still at large.
The year 2006 registered the most number of slain militants/activists, with 38 incidents. - Rhodina Villanueva, Ronilo Pamonag
Military accused of using minors to fight rebels
By Al Jacinto
The Manila Times – www.manilatimes.net
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Zamboanga City: Communist rebels over the weekend accused the Armed Forces of the Philippinesof actively recruiting minors for military operations against the armed movement. The allegation was made after members of the New People’s Army (NPA) discovered that a prisoner they were currently holding is reportedly a 17-year-old member of the Civilian Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit (Cafgu) of the Philippine Army.
According to Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesman of the NPA’s Merardo Arce Command based in Com-postela Valley, recruiting minors for combat operations have become the military’s official policy after allegedly failing in its counter-insurgency campaign.
“The cat is finally out of the bag. . . that in its failed and defeated Operation Plan Bantay Laya 2, the 10th Infantry Division of the Armed Forces of the Philippines recruits and arms minors as combat pawns in its war against the people and the revolutionary forces,” Sanchez said.
Recruitment and training
The 17-year-old militia, Juve Latiban, was apprehended last month by NPA guerillas with his companion, Sergeant Bienvenido Arguelles, as the two were passing through a check point set up by the rebels in the village of Upper Ulip in Compostela Valley’s Monkayo town.
Sanchez reported that Latiban was not even 16 years old when he was recruited in October 2008 by Private First Class Alvin Latiban, a resident of the cited village.
“Together with his batch mates that included 18 other minors, they underwent 45-day training at the 1001st Infantry Brigade headquarters in Tuburan [village] in Mawab town in Compostela Valley,” Sanchez said, quoting from information provided by the arrested militia.
Bogus birth certificates
The rebel spokesman also related that Latiban confessed to being provided fake birth certificates, which stated they were already 18 years old when recruited by the military as militias.
“[Latiban’s] own bogus birth certificate showed that he was born on 1990 instead of the factual 1992 so that it would appear that he was already 18 at the time of his training,” Sanchez added.
“[Latiban] confessed that the 72nd Infantry Battalion trainers knew their actual ages.
His first assignment was at the Philippine Army detachment in Upper Ulip in Monkayo.
Private First Class Latiban is now assigned in the 10th Infantry Division,” Sanchez also said.
The NPA said the militia is only temporarily under custody and would be released as soon as government troops pull out from areas where rebel forces are actively operating in the province.
The NPA has been waging a decades-long protracted armed struggle for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country.
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