EDITORIAL

Killing the ‘progressives’

Despite international calls for a stop to human rights violations in the country, abuses against innocent civilians particularly those involved in “progressive” organizations  are still going on.

These groups have been tagged by the military and some agents of the state as “leftists” even if these are merely engaged in work to help marginalized sectors of society.

           

Latest was the killing of Dutch missionary Willem Geertman in San Fernando, Pampanga last week. The murder was suspected by progressive groups as done by military agents of the state or their minions.  

           

Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano has asked the human rights committee of the House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry into the killing of Geertmanby filing House Resolution 2551 citing reports that the victim received death threats as a “peasant advocate” before he was slain.

Mariano said the victim’s brother, Antonius Ma. AlfonsiusGeertman, is also urging the Philippine government to consider Geertman as “a victim of extrajudicial killing due to his involvement in campaigns against landlessness, mining, logging and a large freeport project in Aurora province.”

Antonius, together with a sister, flew in from the Netherlands to attend the burial of Geertman in Baler, Aurora last Sunday.

Geertman, executive director of Alay Bayan Inc., was shot dead by two unidentified men a few meters from his office in Barangay Telebastagan here on July 3.

Police said Geertman was apparently robbed since he had withdrawn some P1.2 million from a bank just before he was slain.

But Mariano said Antonius believes that the killing of his brother is much more than just ordinary robbery for money.

Mariano said Antonius revealed that his brother had received death threats since four years ago “owing to his work as lay missionary involved in campaigns to save the forests as a resource for farmers, Dumagats, and Cordillerans.”

Mariano also cited the report of the human rights group Karapatan and BagongAlyansangMakabayan (Bayan) in Central Luzon that Geertman had been a supposed victim of the military’s “vilification and harassment” since the 1990s.

Extrajudicial killings will not stop unless government means business in weeding out scalawags in uniform by instituting necessary reforms to stop the menace.