Impunity in the City of Gentle People
“Here we have a political climate blanketed by fear and submission, and a system that promotes such.” KarapatanBy RITCHE T. SALGADO
Bulatlat.com
DUMAGUETE CITY — Around 4 o’clock in the afternoon of June 10, 2009, three gunshots echoed in a quiet street of Dumaguete City, a place reputed as the City of Gentle People.
In an instant, Fermin Lorico, 52, a farmer activist, was killed. He was on his way to a meeting after attending an otherwise successful anti-charter change rally in the city.
Lorico’s murder is just one of the many human rights cases in Negros Oriental that remains unsolved.
In 2009 alone, Karapatan recorded 95 cases of abuse, including five extrajudicial killings, four cases of torture, and 22 cases of various forms of harassment, among others. This does not include cases from previous years, which, up until today remains unsolved.
Karapatan is an independent human rights watchdog critical of government abuses, especially those committed by military personnel against the disadvantaged sectors of society like farmers and the urban poor.
The most recent case of abuse recorded by Karapatan against farmers in Negros Oriental was the burning of two houses in Sitio Avocado, Barangay Talalac, Sta. Catalina last June 2011. The people who responded to the incident were slapped with criminal charges that could land them in jail for six months and fined with up to 5,000 pesos ($ 115.45).
Task Force Lorico
The gruesome murder of Lorico in the heart of the city prompted then City Mayor Agustin Ramon M. Perdices to direct the city police into forming a task force. Two years after, Lorico’s family has yet to find justice.
Task Force Lorico boasted of an elite group of individuals coming from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the Scene of the Crime Operatives, and investigation and intelligence personnel from the city and provincial headquarters of the Philippine National Police. But these were empty boasts as no arrests were made albeit leads that would point to any suspect to the killing.
P/Insp Philippedes Sillero, investigation officer of the Dumaguete City Police Office, confirmed this.
“I thought that case was already closed,” Sillero said when asked by Bulatlat.com for an update. He admitted that since he returned to the post last September he is no longer up to date on the case.
Sillero headed the investigation of the case in 2009 until late last year, when he was assigned to another post for promotion.
Juliet Ragay, a colleague of Lorico in the local farmers group Kaugmaon, questioned the sincerity of the Dumaguete police in solving the case.
Ragay currently chairs a local peasant women’s group called Babayeng Negrense Isulong ang Kalingkawasan (Banika-Amihan) and replaced Lorico as member of the board of trustees of the Central Visayas Farmers Development Center..... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/11/23/impunity-in-the-city-of-gentle-people/
2 comments:
kamura ng buhay dito sa bayan natin. ang murderous streak ng militar galing sa philippine scout mentality na kagagawan ng kalbong agila
"When the Guihulngan City courts issued an arrest warrant for a certain Leonel Librado in February this year, the family was hopeful that justice would be served.
"Since then, however, no arrests were made because apparently Librado could not be located. But in April, Librado was produced by the 11th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army not to be surrendered to the police but to witness against Rogina Quilop who is facing charges of arson in San Carlos City.
"Despite the existing warrant of arrest, Librado was never arrested, which enraged Quirante’s family."
Maraming ganyan sa mundo. Sarap katayin.
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