Filtered By: Topstories
News

NUPL lawyer’s slay shows persistence of injustice in Negros — HRW


The killing of one of the founding members of the National Union of People's Lawyer (NUPL), Benjamin Tarug Ramos, underscored the persistence of injustice in the province of Negros where there is a long-time agrarian conflict, right group Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

"Ramos was representing families of victims of last month’s Sagay Massacre, [where] nine activists were gunned down after joining a protest on a sugarcane plantation," HRW Asia Division researcher Carlos Conde said in a news release.

"These protests, known as 'bungkalan,' have often resulted in violence in Negros and elsewhere, as peasants and farmers occupy contested property and are met with resistance from landowners," Conde added.

It was on October 20 when some members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) were killed in a shooting incident in Sagay City. The group put the blame  on the "powerful landlords" in Negros, in cahoots with the security personnel, for the massacre.

Authorities, however, put the blame on the New People's Army.

Conde said attacks against farmers and peasants – and those who represent them – have highlighted the "deadly consequences" of land injustice in the country as well as the government’s failure to address the issue.

Conde also noted that Ramos' murder was not surprising in a country "where impunity for extrajudicial killings and other serious rights violations, including drug war murders, prevails."

Ramos, 56, was shot by motorcycle-riding men and was declared dead on arrival at the hospital after sustaining three gunshot wounds.

Data from the NUPL stated that Ramos was the 34th lawyer killed in just two years of the Duterte administration.

The Commission on Human Right's office in Region VI, through its sub-office in Bacolod City, already sent a Quick Response Team to investigate Ramos' murder. — Anna Felicia Bajo/RSJ, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT