MANILA — Armed men opened fire on a group of sugar cane farmers who were occupying part of a plantation in the central Philippines, killing nine, and then set three of the bodies on fire, the police said Sunday.

Four other farmers, two of them minors, survived the attack late Saturday on a plantation outside the city of Sagay in Negros Occidental Province and were under police protection as commandos pursued the attackers, the police said.

Those who were killed were members of a farmers’ union, the National Federation of Sugarcane Workers, who began occupying the area over the weekend as part of a campaign to begin cultivating land covered by a government agrarian overhaul, the police said. The state program, which dates to the 1980s, calls for redistributing private and public agricultural land to independent small farmers.

The vacant plot they had occupied belongs to Hacienda Nene, a vast sugar cane plantation, which has been subject to the government land program, rights workers and the farmers’ group said. </s> Dozens of armed men allegedly fired at the farmers inside Hacienda Nene on Saturday night, October 20

NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines – At least 9 farmers were killed after they were fired upon by some 40 armed men at Hacienda Nene in Barangay Bulanon, Sagay City, here on Saturday night, October 20.

The fatalities, who included 4 women and 2 minors, belonged to the National Federation of Sugar Workers.

Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Castil Jr, director of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, said the farmers had occupied the farm owned by a certain Carmen Tolentino on Saturday morning, after the owner had harvested her crops.

While the farmers were resting at their makeshift shelter, the gunmen shot them dead.

Police identified the victims as Eglicerio Villegas, Angelipe Arsenal, alias Pater, Dodong Laurencio, Morena Mendoza, Necnec Dumaguit, Bingbing Bantigue, 17-year-old Jomarie Ughayon Jr, and 17-year-old Marchtel Sumicad, all residents of Sagay City.

Castil said an investigation is underway. – Rappler.com </s> BACOLOD CITY-Nine members of the National Federation of Sugarcane Workers, two of them minors, were killed on a farm in Sagay City in Negros Occidental about 9:45 p.m. on Saturday.

Senior Supt. Rodolfo Castil , Negros Occidental police director, said the victims were killed by about 40 unidentified armed men in Purok Firetree, Barangay Bulanon, Sagay.

Eglicerio Villegas, 36; Jomarie Ughayon Jr., 17; Marchtel Sumicad, 17; Angelipe Arsenal, Dodong Laurencio, Morena Mendoza, Necnec Dumaguit, Bingbing Bantigue and one identified only as Pater— all of Sagay City.

Initial investigation disclosed that agricultural farm owned by Carmen Tolentino situated in Hacienda Nene Purok Firetree was occupied by members of NFSW in the morning of Saturday after It was being harvested by the owner, Castil said.

While the members of NFSW were resting in their improvised shelter inside of hacienda about 9:30 p.m., about 40 unidentified armed men fired at the group, he said.

 Investigation still going on, he added. </s> The Philippine National Police is looking at four groups as the possible killers of nine sugarcane farmers in Negros Occidental province on Saturday: goons hired by the landowner, other land claimants, communist New People’s Army (NPA) insurgents, or militiamen.

Malacañang has blamed the killings on the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

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Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo on Monday cited initial police findings pointing to the NPA as the group behind the killings.

“There are initial findings, which reveal that the [survivors] identified those who attacked them as members of the NPA,” Panelo said in a radio interview.

Communist ‘legal front’

He said the farmers’ group was a “legal front” of the communist rebels.

The slain farmers, including four women and two minors, belonged to the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW).

“[T]hose killed were recruited the day before they were killed,” Panelo said.

He said the government would use the full force of the law to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said on Monday that the farmers were not agrarian reform beneficiaries and entered part of the disputed Hacienda Nene at Barangay Bulanon, Sagay City, illegally on Saturday.

On Saturday night, as the farmers were resting in a tent on the farm, five to seven gunmen came and opened fire, killing them all.

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Killers not yet known

Chief Supt. John Bulalacao, Western Visayas police director, told reporters at PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City, on Monday that the killers had not yet been identified.

He said the investigation was looking into the possibility that the landowner deployed goons to remove the farmers from the plantation.

“It is common knowledge in Negros that landowners there tend to assemble people and give them arms so they can help in [securing their lands],” Bulalacao said.

Other land claimants could also be involved in the attack, he said.

Earlier, he said, 40 farmers who had a deed of donation covering the plantation went to see the NFSW farmers and told them not to “squat” on their land.

Bulalacao said some of the 40 farmers were linked to the NPA or were supporters of the insurgents.

He said investigators were also looking at the possibility that the attack was carried out by militiamen because the military auxiliaries had a quarrel with NFSW in 2014 or 2015.

But investigators were leaning toward the NPA angle, he said, because of the communist campaign to discredit the government.

Bulalacao noted that NFSW was a “legal front” of the NPA.

“These victims [who were from other barangays and were not tenants of the hacienda] had been members of NFSW for only two days. They were brought to the hacienda to occupy [the land] and when they were settled there, the recruiters who allegedly were the core group of NFSW left [to go to a house to charge their cell phones] and a few minutes after that, the victims were gunned down,” Bulalacao said.

Used as ‘bait’

In this angle, he said, the victims were used as “bait.”

“That’s why we came up with our angle that this was perpetrated by the NPA in pursuance of their campaign to discredit the government,” Bulalacao said.

The militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) slammed the PNP claim of NPA involvement in the killings.

“This allegation is bereft of any proof nor actual motive. The PNP is again trying to push the discredited ‘destabilization’ tale as the motive for the massacre,” Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes said on Monday.

Former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares on Sunday called for an independent investigation, suggesting that the military could be involved in the killings.

Colmenares, who is from Negros Occidental, said Brig. Gen. Eliezer Losanes, commander of the 303rd Infantry Brigade, had previously accused farmers involved in the land cultivation system in the province of being NPA members.

‘Cheap trick’

On Monday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Colmenares’ accusation was “a cheap and indecent trick to burnish his image.”

Colmenares is running for the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.

The Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives filed a resolution urging an inquiry into the killings.

Senators expressed outrage over the killings and called for an impartial investigation.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) condemned the killings and called on the government to give assurance that justice would be served for the victims.

Jacqueline de Guia, CHR spokesperson, said the government should also deal with the plight of the farmers.

“It is most disturbing that death becomes the price of claiming one’s rights,” De Guia said.

The DAR has launched an investigation of the killings.

Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones said he was sending a task force to Hacienda Nene to investigate, including reports that the plantation had avoided agrarian reform coverage. —REPORTS FROM JAYMEE T. GAMIL, JULIE M. AURELIO, JHESSET O. ENANO, JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE, DJ YAP, MELVIN GASCON AND CARLA P. GOMEZ

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MOST READ </s> Benjamin Ramos was in front of a store near the public plaza in Kabankalan City when he was shot at close range by two unidentified men

NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines – A human rights lawyer here was killed by riding-in-tandem assailants Tuesday night, November 6, in Barangay 5, Kabankalan City.

Benjamin Ramos, secretary-general of the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers-Negros Island, was in front of a store near the public plaza when he was shot at close range by two unidentified men.

Karapatan-Negros secretary-general Clarizza Singson, quoting the victim's wife, said the lawyer was having a smoke when he was attacked around 10:20 pm.

Singson said the victim was rushed to a hospital but he succumbed to 4 gunshot wounds, 3 in the front and one in the back.

Ramos, who represented a number of political prisoners, was the lawyer of youth leader and University of the Philippines Cebu alumna Myles Albasin and her 5 companions – known as the Mabinay 6 – who were arrested in March this year in Mabinay, Negros Oriental, following an alleged clash with government troopers, although they later tested negative for gunpowder residues.

The lawyer, being a peasant advocate, had also founded the farmers' organization Paghiliusa Development Group. – Rappler.com </s> By most accounts, Benjamin Ramos died doing exactly what he had always done as a human rights lawyer: helping his clients free of charge. On the evening of November 6, Ramos was taking a break from assisting a client when gunmen on a motorcycle shot him three times. Ramos was 56 years old.

Ramos’s murder in the central Philippine province of Negros Occidental is shocking but, sadly, not surprising in a country where impunity for extrajudicial killings and other serious rights violations, including “drug war” murders, prevails.

Lawyers like Ramos who represent the most marginalized people in the Philippines have themselves also been victims of abuse. For his work, authorities vilified Ramos as a communist and harassed his colleagues. According to the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, which he helped establish, Ramos was the 34th lawyer to have been murdered since President Rodrigo Duterte took office.

Ramos’s murder also underscores the persistence of injustice in Negros, where landlessness has bred decades-old agrarian conflict. Ramos was representing families of victims of last month’s Sagay Massacre, when nine activists were gunned down after joining a protest on a sugarcane plantation. These protests, known as “bungkalan,” have often resulted in violence in Negros and elsewhere, as peasants and farmers occupy contested property and are met with resistance from landowners. Three decades since the Philippines’ “People Power” uprising spurred demands for change, agrarian reform remains an unfulfilled promise.

The National Federation of Sugar Workers has reported that 172 farmers, peasants and land rights activists – 45 in Negros alone – have been killed during Duterte’s two years in office. Only about 15 cases have been filed in court and none have resulted in a conviction, according to the Philippine human rights group Karapatan.

Attacks against farmers and peasants – and those who represent them – highlight the deadly consequences of land injustice in the Philippines and the government’s continued failure to address a long-simmering issue. </s> Bangkok, August 7, 2017--A Filipino journalist was shot and killed today while riding a motorcycle in the town of President Quirino, on the southern island of Mindanao, news reports said. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the killing and called on Philippine authorities to identify the assailants and swiftly bring them to justice.

Leonardo Diaz, a columnist at the local Sapol News newspaper and volunteer reporter at Radio Mindanao-Cotabato, was shot multiple times near the town's Kalanawi II village at around 9 a.m., the reports said. Senior Police Inspector Joan Resurrecion said Diaz died on the spot, the reports said. Two companions who were with Diaz were injured and were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, reports said. News reports gave conflicting accounts on whether there were one or two assailants, who fled the scene by motorcycle.

"Authorities must quickly apprehend the perpetrators and determine the motive behind the murder of journalist Leonardo Diaz," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's Southeast Asia representative. "Until President Rodrigo Duterte shows he is serious about protecting journalists, these types of brazen killings will continue in an unbroken cycle of impunity."

Diaz's murder is at least the second attack on a journalist in the country in recent weeks. On July 28, an unknown assailant shot and critically wounded radio commentator Julito Orillandea in the town of Marihatag, also in Mindanao. Police have not announced any suspects or arrests in that crime, according to press reports.

On December 19, an unidentified gunman shot and killed newspaper publisher Larry Que at his office in Catanduanes province's town of Vivac, according to media reports. Que was shot soon after his newspaper published a column he wrote alleging official negligence over an illegal methamphetamine laboratory that police raided in the island province, news reports said. CPJ is investigating to determine if his murder was in direct retaliation for his work.

The Philippines ranked fourth on CPJ's latest Impunity Index, a measure of countries worldwide where journalist are killed and the murderers go free. </s> Thirteen alleged drug traffickers were shot dead by the police in 24 hours in the Bulacan province in Philippines as part of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.

The police killed 13 suspects and arrested another 109 during an intensive operation that lasted from Tuesday midnight to Thursday, according to a statement by the National Police in Bulacan, a province located north of Manila with a population of 2.2 million. </s> 'Napaka-small time ko naman. Why would I assassinate him?' says President Rodrigo Duterte days after human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos was killed

MANILA, Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte denied he was behind the killing of a lawyer for communists, as critics blamed the Philippine National Police for the death of human rights lawyer and peasant advocate Benjamin Ramos in Negros Occidental.

"What the fucking shit? Why would I kill a lawyer? Napaka-small time ko naman. (I would be too small time to do that.) Why would I assassinate him? For what?" Duterte said on Thursday, November 8, without naming any particular lawyer.

"Whether you have a lawyer or not, you cannot occupy somebody else's land by force and intimidation. I will not allow it. That’s anarchy," Duterte said in a speech at the distribution of certificates of land ownership award in Boracay.

Duterte also blasted the Left in his speech on Thursday. "Of course, the communists will never conquer us. They can never overwhelm this government. But certainly it will not stop trouble."

Ramos, secretary general of the Negros Occidental arm of the National Union of People's Lawyers, was shot dead by riding-in-tandem killers on Tuesday evening, November 6, in Kabankalan City.

Ramos represented political prisoners, farmers, and other marginalized sectors during his career as pro-bono lawyer. According to ABS-CBN News, he also helped the National Federation of Sugar Workers after unidentified assailants killed 9 sugarcane farmers– called the "Sagay 9" – at Hacienda Nene in Sagay City, Negros Occidental.

Malacañang earlier slammed critics for blaming the government for Ramos' death. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said doing so "is reckless, irresponsible, and baseless."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) tagged the incident as "a blow to the human rights movement in the country" which has suffered from threats, including from Duterte himself.

"We demand an impartial investigation into Ramos' murder and the many other attacks against lawyers in the Philippines and that the authorities bring the perpetrators to justice," said Carlos Conde of HRW Asia Division. – Rappler.com
Unidentified armed men shoot and kill nine sugarcane farmers in Sagay, Negros Occidental, Philippines.