Albay gov urges probe of killings

By Mar Arguelles
Manila Standard Today
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=regions1_jan3_2007

LEGAZPI CITY—Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzalez yesterday urged the government to investigate the New Year’s Eve killing of a leader of the Bayan Muna party.

“I am calling [on] the Melo Commission to investigate the killing of Rodolfo Alvarado, a Bayan Muna party-list provincial coordinator,” the governor said.

Alvarado was gunned down on New Year’s Eve while he was on his way home on board his car at Barangay Sta. Cruz in Ligao City by a lone assailant armed with a .45-cal pistol together with two others on board a motorcycle.

The killing of Alvarado brings to 128 the total number of activists who have been killed in the Bicol region this year, said Vince Casilihan of Bayan Muna and Karapatan Bicol, which blamed the military for the killing.

Casilihan said the motives and pattern of the killings follow one pattern: a balaclava-wearing killer is usually on board a motorcycle which they use to flee the scene of the crime.

Maj. Ramon Rosario, the military spokesman here, said that the military supports the investigation being conducted by the police.

On Dec. 12, 2006 lawyer Gil Gojol and his driver Danilo France were ambushed by motorcycle-riding men while he was on his way home from a court hearing in Gubat, Sorsogon. Both died on the spot and suffered several gunshot wound.

Gojol, a former provincial councilor, was chapter president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines who represented a leftist labor union and victims of human rights violations.

The day before Gojol’s killing, Crisanto Frivaldo, a law student of Aquinas University, was shot dead inside his home at Barangay San Julian in Irosin, Sorsogon. Crisanto is the younger brother of former Councilor and Bayan Muna town coordinator Maximo Frivaldo who was also shot dead last Jan. 30 while tending to his two-month-old child in their house.

Last Nov. 16, Toribio Mesa, a Bayan Muna barangay coordinator of Jamorawon in Bulan, Sorsogon, was also killed. On Nov. 19, the body of farmer Domingo Marbella, was found at Barangay Lungib in Pilar, Sorsogon after he was abducted by men wearing military uniforms, Casilihan said.

Karapatan Bicol, he said, has documented 128 killed from Jan. 21, 2001 to Dec.12, 2006, 40 of them were killed last year.