Ati tribe spokesman shot dead in Boracay

ILOILO CITY—An unidentified gunman shot dead the spokesperson of the Ati tribe on Boracay Island Friday evening, police said.

Dexter Condez, 26, spokesperson of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organization (BATO), died from multiple gunshot wounds after he was shot around 9 p.m. at Barangay Manoc-Manoc, said Senior Inspector Joeffer Cabural, chief of the Boracay Tourist Assistance Center, the island’s police force.

Cabural said the victim was walking with two other tribe leaders heading to their village when he was shot.

Barangay Manoc-Manoc, one of three villages on the 1,032-hectare island-resort, is where the Ati tribe has been occupying parts of a 2.1-hectare property covered by a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title granted by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples on Jan. 21, 2011.

Several property claimants have been opposing the claim of the Atis to the land.

Cabural said they were still conducting an investigation to identify the assailant and the motive of the killing.