Another activist shot dead in Ecija

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – Another member of the party-list group Bayan Muna was killed and two others were wounded in San Jose City in Nueva Ecija Friday night, bringing to 13 the number of militant leaders killed in Central Luzon this year, a human rights group said yesterday.

Sr. Cecilia Ruiz, who chairs Karapatan-Gitnang Luson, cited reports identifying the slain Bayan Muna member as Arturo Caloza, 28, and the wounded as Geronimo Pablo, 45, and Ursula Tabelin, 65, all residents of Barangay Villa Marina.

Ski mask-wearing men were behind the attack, the reports said.

Only last Thursday night, Santiago Teodoro, chairman of Bayan’s Bulacan chapter, was shot dead by a motorcycle-riding man in Barangay Barihan in Malolos City.

Ruiz said Caloza was shot in the back, the bullet exiting below his left armpit, and in the left chest, the bullet exiting through his back.

Pablo was hit in the left foot, and Tabelin in the right leg by a bullet that went through Caloza.

Ruiz said Caloza’s group was attending the wake of a neighbor when a ski mask-wearing man armed with a caliber .45 pistol attacked them.

Ruiz quoted witnesses as saying that the gunman had two lookouts who fired their guns to prevent people from rushing Caloza to the hospital.

Karapatan claimed in a fact-finding report that last Friday morning, soldiers deployed in Barangay Villa Marina allegedly hinted that "some kind of activity would take place at nightfall."

Because of this, residents suspect that the military had a hand in the attack.

Ruiz said soldiers belonging to the Army’s 48th and 70th Infantry Battalions made rounds of the village for two days before they put up their outpost in the barangay hall last Jan. 21.

The soldiers reportedly conducted a census and also visited Caloza’s family, telling his mother that he (Caloza) bore the alias "Ka Ambot" in the New People’s Army.

Officers of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) in Central Luzon have sought the help of civilian authorities against the military’s alleged disregard for civilian supremacy in the region, following Teodoro’s killing last Thursday.

Bayan regional chairman Roman Polintan said he and his fellow officers met with some officers of the Pampanga Mayors’ League, headed by Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, and urged them to issue a resolution condemning the series of killings of militant leaders.

"Our count is that 51 of our militant leaders were killed last year and another 13 so far this year," he said, adding that none of the killings have been solved.

Polintan said several other activists remain missing after they were snatched by suspected military men.

The latest to be abducted was Joey Estriber, a radioman active in the social work of Bayan in Baler, Aurora.

Polintan said the military has ignored resolutions passed by officials of Mexico and Guagua in Pampanga seeking to dismantle military outposts in their respective towns.

Last year, Mexico Mayor Teddy Tumang approved a resolution asking the military to remove its detachments which he and other local officials blamed for the deterioration of peace and order in the town. The military ignored the resolution.

"The pattern of the killings and other forms of harassment has indicated that all militant leaders at the national, provincial and municipal levels are under threat," Polintan said.

Because of this, Bayan Muna and Bayan leaders have advised their members to change their daily routines and seek protection from their local religious leaders, he said.

"But this does not mean that we have been cowed. As a matter of fact, the repression has emboldened us more," he added.

Polintan said he and other Bayan leaders in Central Luzon are also set to appeal to other mayors’ leagues, provincial and municipal legislative councils, and the peace and order councils in the region to ask them to issue resolutions seeking a stop to summary executions and other forms of harassment of activists and upholding civilian supremacy over the military.

Bayan Muna said more than 80 of its members have been slain since 2001. Authorities, frequently referring to the party as a communist front, have denied allegations that the police and the military had a hand in the killings.

Last Thursday, London-based Amnesty International said that comments of senior government officials linking left-wing groups to communist insurgents threaten to "create a climate within which further political killings may take place."

It urged the government to conduct prompt, thorough and impartial investigations of all the killings. — With Ric Sapnu, Dino Balabo