AFTER MURDER OF 2
Cagayan activist gets death threat


INQUIRER.net
Last updated 03:12pm (Mla time) 04/07/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- An activist in Cagayan province was threatened with death by still unidentified men early Saturday after participating in a fact-finding mission that investigated the murder of two leaders of a militant farmers’ group.

Willy Marbella, internal deputy secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines), said in a statement that a vehicle stopped in front of the house of Sherwin Bunaga, 32, a volunteer of the leftist party-list group Anakpawis (Toiling Masses), in Tuguegarao City.

The men on the vehicle shouted an invective at Bunaga and added, “Papatayin ka naming, hayop ka [We will kill you, you beast],” before speeding off.

Bunaga had just come from the fact-finding mission conducted by KMP and the human rights group Kaparatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) into the deaths of Arthur Orpilla and Dionisio Battad, both 50, whose bodies were found under the Magapit Bridge spanning the Cagayan River in Lallo town Wednesday.

The two, who belonged to the KMP’s Cagayan affiliate and were also members of Anakpawis, had gone missing on March 27.

Citing the findings of the fact-finding mission, Marbella, who is also a nominee of Anakpawis in the May elections, said Orpilla and Battad bore stab and bullet wounds.

“Their fingers were hacked and their necks were slashed,” he said. “Battad’s head was almost cut off because of the severity of his neck wound; his left eye was also plucked and his ear severed.”

The KMP officer accused the military of being behind the murders.

In the same statement, Karapatan’s Girlie Padilla claimed the family of the two farmer leaders were also being threatened by the military and warned to “remain silent.”

Padilla claimed they have witnesses who can attest that the military had been ordering Battad to report daily to their camp since December.

“They were also the ones who asked him to report to the military camp on the 27th,” she added.


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