Bayan Muna condemns assassination of Aklan provincial leader
Submitted by mkbyn on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 11:32am
First activist killing under Aquino
Bayan Muna President Satur Ocampo and Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teddy Casiño today vehemently condemned the assassination of Sangguniang Bayan member and Bayan Muna provincial coordinator Fernando I. Baldomero of Lezo, Aklan, who was shot early morning today in front of his rented house in Brgy. Estancia, Kalibo, Aklan while preparing to bring his child to school.
The 61-year old Baldomero was a second-term councilor, Bayan Muna coordinator for Aklan as well as an official of the Makabayan Coalition in the province. He is the 145th Bayan Muna member to fall victim to extrajudicial killings in the country and the first activist and elected local government official slain under the Aquino administration.
“We demand an immediate and thorough investigation on the possible involvement of military and military-backed death squads in this continuing climate of impunity against government critics. Baldomero is the first and should be the last victim of extrajudicial killing under the Aquino government," Rep. Casiño, a good friend of Baldomero and native of Aklan, said.
Initial reports from media said that the two suspects wearing maong jackets and helmets waited outside the Baldomero’s home and shot him using .45 caliber pistols. Four empty shells were seen at the crime scene.
For his part, Bayan Muna president Satur Ocampo said that at the height of the campaign period last March 19, two men riding a motorbike with no plate number lobbed a grenade at Baldomero's house in Brgy. Sta. Cruz Bigaa, Lezo, Aklan. The grenade exploded in the kitchen area. The men threw a second grenade which landed inside the house where Baldomero's father was preparing feed for his chickens. The grenade failed to detonate.
“The death toll of activists must be stopped. As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Pres. 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.
Casiño and Ocampo called on the President to immediately suspend the government's counterinsurgency program called "Oplan Bantay Laya III" and its policy of classifying Leftist activists as "enemies of the state" which, they said, led to widespread and systematic extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances during the Arroyo regime.
They said that the Aquino government should implement the many recommendations of UN Special Rapporteur Prof. Philip Alston which remain unheeded since 2007. #
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