Camarines Norte head of Bayan Muna slain

LEGAZPI CITY — Two unidentified men shot dead the Camarines Norte secretary-general of the party-list group Bayan Muna while he was on board a tricycle a few meters from his house in Daet town yesterday morning, the police said.

Chief Superintendent Victor Barbo Boco, Bicol police director, said the two men riding tandem on a black sports motorbike flagged down the tricycle bearing Jason Aldwin Delen, 28, at about 9:45 a.m. and then shot him nine times in the head and in the back with 9-mm pistols.

The attack happened a few meters from Delen’s house along Litana street in Barangay Gubat.

Earlier, at about 9 a.m., meanwhile, two men gunned down Jim Mirafuentes, a member of an urban poor group, in Barangay Kilicao, Daraga town, said Superintendent Jose Capinpin, the town’s police chief.

According to Bayan Muna, the twin killings brought to nine the number of its members killed this year, and 87 since President Arroyo took power in 2001.

Last Saturday, Bayan Muna member Marilou Rubio was shot dead in General Nakar, Quezon.

Robert de Castro, deputy secretary-general of Bayan Muna, claimed that the killings of activists are part of the military’s "Oplan Bantay Laya."

Capinpin said Mirafuentes was walking when he was accosted and shot point-blank.

Meanwhile, Delen’s wife, Maricel, recalled that before her husband was killed, two persons accosted him after he had stepped out of his house.

"Bakit kayo nandito? At kilala ko kayo (Why are you here? I know you)," she quoted her husband as saying before he boarded the tricycle.

Mrs. Delen blamed military intelligence agents for her husband’s gunslaying.

She said there was an attempt on her husband’s life last Dec. 10 while they were celebrating International Human Rights Day in Daet town.

She said the slay attempt happened after they had apprehended an armed infiltrator whom they turned over to the police.

Boco ordered Senior Superintendent Efren Yebra, Camarines Norte police director, and Superintendent Jose Capinpin, Daraga police chief, to conduct an investigation into the separate killings.

"I am also asking any witnesses to come forward to help shed light on the killings," he told The STAR.

Boco said police were still investigating the March killing of Cris Hugo, provincial head of the League of Filipino Students (LFS).

"I was able to talk to the parents of Cris Hugo who confirmed the report that their son had written a formal letter of resignation as a member of the LFS to the organization’s head office in Manila in January this year," he said.

But the LFS, according to Boco, did not accept Hugo’s resignation "because he already knew too much."

Maj. Ronard Rosario, head of the Armed Forces’ Civil Relations Service, denied speculations that the military had a hand in the killings.

"These organizations are creating a scenario to drum up negative propaganda against the military even if they have to liquidate their own members and blame these on the military," he said.

Rosario said the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army and its front organizations killed thousands of their members in the 1980s on suspicions that they had been working for the police and the military.

Police are also still investigating the killings of Ding Uy and Max Frivaldo, both Bayan Muna coordinators in Sorsogon, last November and December, respectively. — With Katherine Adraneda