Another activist shot dead
By : AFP  | Manila Standard
2 January 2007 | 8:13 AM

A MEMBER of a fringe leftist party was shot dead on New Year’s Eve in the latest of a spate of political murders in the Philippines, his colleagues and police said yesterday.

Rodolfo Alvarado, a provincial chairman of the Bayan Muna or Nation First party in Albay, was ambushed by a gunman aboard a motorcyle and died instantly.

The motive for the attack was not immediately known but colleagues said it could be linked to his work.

More than 180 activists—including journalists, human rights workers, left-wing politicians, trade unionists and lawyers—were assassinated in 2006 for their criticism of the government, rights groups claim.

The number has shocked the Roman Catholic Church, Amnesty International and the European Union, forcing them to call on President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to stop the killings.

Mrs. Arroyo has created a special commission to investigate the deaths but none of the cases have so far been solved.

Activists blame military “death squads” for the attacks, a claim repeatedly denied by the Armed Forces.

The military says that many of those slain were members of groups fronting for communist insurgents and may have been targets of internal purges. 

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