Militants fear resurgence of ‘killing spree’

MANILA, Philippines - Militant groups condemned Wednesday the killing of a coordinator of party list Bayan Muna in Kapalong town in Davao del Norte, saying it may mean the start of a new killing spree. Labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) noted the brutality with which Rolando Antolihao, a worker at Global Fruits Corp., was shot seven times in his house in Gabuyan village on Nov. 10. "The Kilusang Mayo Uno is alarmed with the unabated extra-judicial killings and undeniable rising incidents of illegal arrests and arbitrary detention. Unmistakably, the motive of this regime is to decimate the struggle for labor rights and demolish the militant labor movement," KMU chairman Elmer Labog said on the Kilusang Mayo Uno website. "In this ruthless government to be a activist peasant or a worker organizer rates, at the minimum, a fabricated murder charge and incarceration. But to be an organizer and at the same time be an active party-list leader warrants an automatic merciless death sentence or salvaging," he added. Kelly Delgado, secretary general of Karapatan in southern Mindanao, noted the assassins in civilian clothes knocked at the victim's house, and when he opened the door, shot him several times. Four days earlier, motorcycle-riding men gunned down Danilo Qualbar, a Bayan Muna coordinator and farmers' association president in Compostela town, Compostela Valley. Delgado said Antolihao was the fifth victim of extra-judicial killings in southern Mindanao region and the third Bayan Muna leader killed this year. Also, labor leader Arnold Cerdo of Laguna province was almost killed Thursday night when armed men, suspected as government agents, shot him. The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights said Cerdo is vice-president of Sensuous Union Labor Organization-IND. Cerdo is also working as a staff member of the Cabuyao Workers Alliance. CTURH claimed Cerdo was talking with his brother-in-law Juanito Dacillo at the terrace of his house at Riverside, Calamba City, when two men wearing bonnets and fatigue jackets arrived at around 9:30 pm and fired at them. The KMU said, these exclude the arrest of lawyer Remigio Saladero Jr., KMU's chief lawyer, and Arnaldo Seminiano, a labor organizer in Laguna, on "trumped-up multiple murder charges." The two are presently detained in Calapan, Mindoro. KMU noted that the government's legal offensive cases portray and subsequently accuse legal activists to be members of the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. But instead of simply filing rebellion cases against them, they are instead charged with common crimes such as murder and arson, it added. Meanwhile, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan)'s Canada chapter demanded the immediate release of Saladero and three local leaders of people's organizations. The three include Nestor San Jose of Anakpawis party list and PISTON, Crispin Zapanta of Bayan Muna party list, Rogelio Galit, a peasant leader from Anakpawis. On Nov. 6, Arnaldo Seminiano of KMU was also arrested and detained. "All five men, plus 67 others, all in all including 30 leaders of people's organizations, are in a repeatedly amended list charging them with various non-bailable criminal offences of multiple murders, frustrated multiple murders, and arson around the burning by the New People's Army (NPA) of the Globe Telecom cell site in Lemery, Batangas Aug. 2 this year and their ambush of the military in Puerto Galera, Mindoro Oriental in Mar. 3, 2006," it said. "So what we have here is the criminalization of dissent made possible by a total lack of due process," it added. It added the list includes eight of nine grassroots activists who were abducted and tortured last August 31 in Tartaria, Cavite by the Calabarzon Philippine National Police's (PNP) Regional Special Operations Group. Also included in the complaint are other human rights victims themselves such as Arman Albarillo, who lost both his parents after they were murdered by military forces, and Orly Marcellana, whose wife Eden Marcellana (Karapatan ST Secretary General) was killed in Mindoro by soldiers under Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. "Arrests like these are not new," the group said, but added the difference this time is that the government is using mass arrests. Bayan-Canada chairman Chandu Claver said this is meant to "terrorize the Filipino people into silence" by abducting and killing the leaders and activists. "But this bloody campaign has failed very miserably. Now they are resorting to trying to stifle the voice of the people through the mass arrests of the people's leaders using grossly bogus charges of non-bailable offenses. Mass arrests and persecution have always been in the gruesome toolbox of modern despots from Hitler, to Marcos. With this new move, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is striving very hard to join that ignominious league," he said. The Canada-based group demanded the release of all political prisoners, the dropping of all politically motivated and trumped up charges against them, the thorough investigation of all political killings and disappearances. They also urged Canadian Members of Parliament to denounce the use by the Arroyo regime of mass arrests to silence opposition. - GMANews.TV