4 union leaders in Compostela Valley shot

DAVAO CITY — Four union leaders in Compostela Valley were in critical condition after unidentified men shot them yesterday morning, an official of a militant labor group said.

The victims were identified as Vicente Barrios, president of the Nagkahiusang Mamumoo sa Suyapa Farms, and his fellow union leaders in Compostela town, Jerson Lastimoso, Aldin Corte, and Donie Glen Sondon.

The four are now confined at the Davao Regional Hospital in Tagum City, Davao del Norte.

"We condemn this atrocity in the strongest terms. This culture of impunity against the workers and the struggling people should be stopped," said Omar Bantayan, secretary-general of the Kilusang Mayo Uno in Southern Mindanao.

Bantayan said the four union leaders, who are simply working in a banana plantation, should be given justice.

"We blame the inutile government of President Arroyo for tolerating these things as killings of political activists and workers have never ceased," he said.  

Bantayan told The STAR that Barrios has been receiving death threats in the past months.

"That is why we have been telling him that because of the threats on his life, he should refrain from going out alone. We even suggested that he should be with three or four people when he would go out. But it turned out that they have all been shot," he said.