The following are examples of arbitrary and unlawful killings during the year:
On April 12, a gunman, subsequently identified as a police officer, shot and killed environmental activist Elpidio de la Victoria in Talisay City, Cebu. The police officer was allegedly acting as a hired gunman for a private businessman. On September 18, a trial court judge in Cebu convicted police officer Marcial Ocampo and sentenced him to 20 to 40 years in prison.
On May 29, three assailants on a motorcycle shot and killed Sotero Llamas, a former adviser of the Communist Party (CPP)-aligned National Democratic Front (NDF) in Tabaco City, Albay Province. Task Force Usig identified two suspects, an alleged former NPA commander and a discharged former Philippine Army member. Witnesses were identified and murder charges were filed, although by year’s end no arrests had been made.
On July 31, unidentified men in two vans fired on Constancio Claver, a doctor and provincial leader of Bayan Muna, and his wife Alice, local coordinator of the same group, in Tabuk, Kalinga Province, wounding Constancio and killing his wife. The PNP chief relieved the head of the Kalinga police from his post in order to create a climate of trust in the course of investigation. On September 22, the PNP Criminal Investigation Group filed charges of murder and three counts of frustrated murder against a Kalinga police officer, who was also the bodyguard and driver of the relieved police chief. At year’s end, the suspect was in restrictive police custody and the case was with the local prosecutor for preliminary investigation.
On August 3, approximately 10 masked gunmen shot and killed United Methodist Church pastor Isaias Santa Rosa in Daraga, Albay. Santa Rosa was a member of a Bicol region leftist farmers’ group. His family alleged that the gunmen tortured him and forced him to confess that he was a communist rebel. The police found another dead man at the site of the incident, later identified as an army military intelligence group corporal, whom Santa Rosa’s family alleged was among the group of armed men. The police were still investigating the case as of the end of December.
Investigations of cases from 2004 and 2005, including killings of judges (see section 1.e.), were still ongoing:
In March 2005 gunmen killed a leader of Bayan Muna and a priest of the Aglipayan Church who were involved in supporting a strike by plantation workers in Tarlac Province; officials arrested a suspect in the case of the priest’s killing. At year’s end, a trial was underway in a Tarlac court, and the suspect was still detained.
The CHR has not released a final report of its investigation of the 2004 killing by security forces of seven persons during the strike of plantation workers in Tarlac Province.
There were no developments in the investigation of the March 2005 killing of Bayan Muna coordinator Felidito Dacut. Task Force Usig alleged that members of the CPP/NPA Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee were possible suspects.
The killings of United Church of Christ in the Philippines pastors in May and August 2005 were still under investigation at year’s end.
Two members of the Philippine Army were charged with murder for the October 2005 killing of Ricardo Ramos, a leader of the sugar workers’ union at the Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac Province. The criminal case was under preliminary investigation by a local prosecutor, although it was on trial in a military court at year’s end.
The trial in the case of the 2004 killing of Bayan Muna members Juvy Magsino and Leyma Fortu in Mindoro Oriental was ongoing in a Quezon City trial court at year’s end. In 2004 the police arrested one suspect, allegedly a hired gun, on murder charges; another unidentified suspect was still at large.
Extrajudicial Killings, Terrorism
