MANILA, Philippines -- The Quezon City Prosecutor?s Office has dismissed the murder case against eight suspected communist assassins, including two women, who were accused of killing labor leader Felimon ?Popoy? Lagman, due to the failure of witnesses to attend the preliminary investigation.

Assistant city prosecutor Raymund Oliver Almonte decided to throw out the criminal case versus the accused after Lagman?s son, Dante, failed to show up in any of the scheduled preliminary investigation sessions, in which he was a witness and a complainant.

Dante was with his father when the labor leader was gunned down on February 6, 2001, inside the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City, where they were attending a gathering.

?(T)he non-appearance of the complainant in the preliminary investigations shows the lack of interest on his part to prosecute the complaint,? Almonte said in his one-page order.

?The absence of the complainant and his witnesses to appear during the scheduled preliminary investigations consequently resulted in the failure of the investigating prosecutor to clarify matters necessary to establish the existence of probable cause," he said.

Almonte?s order, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday, was approved by second assistant city prosecutor Alfredo Agcaoili and city prosecutor Claro Arellano.

The respondents in the case -- Rommel Bayen, Jenny Canlas, Brandy Nilo Gerona, Gilbys Gerona, Lloyd Perez, Jonatahan Cartujano, Ely Macariola, Jr. and Sienna Quiambao -- were arrested from their supposed safehouse in the village of San Vicente, San Pedro, Laguna, last January.

The arresting police unit, headed by the intelligence unit of the Southern Police District, alleged that the group was responsible for the murder of Lagman based on the gun seized from one of suspects.

Police claimed the recovered .45 pistol exactly matched the gun used in the killing of Lagman, who founded the worker?s group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Congregation of Filipino Workers).

The police likewise said the eight were members of a breakaway group of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), a faction of the communist New People?s Army (NPA).

Sought for comment, Dante said he never received any formal notice or invitation from the prosecutor?s office regarding the preliminary hearing of the case.

?It?s wrong for them to say that I did not attend the preliminary investigation because I was never invited to such hearings,? he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a mobile phone interview.

?But I would have attended if I was formally notified,? he added.

Dante also divulged that he personally doubted the participation of the arrested suspects in the assassination of his father as alleged by the police.

He argued that the accused -- who are in their early 20s -- were ?too young to be my father?s assassins.?

The armed men who shot Lagman were already in their late 30s or early 40s when the killing happened, he stressed.

?If they were the ones who killed my father, they must be still teenagers then. That?s really unlikely,? said Dante, who saw two of his father?s gunmen.

Dante said linking the RPA-ABB to his father?s death was a ploy to sow intrigues among leftist organizations.

Dante said instead of arresting ?fall guys? and creating intrigues, the government should revive ?Task Force Popoy? which, he said, was unceremoniously dissolved only four months after Lagman?s demise.

?The Arroyo government did not show any grain of sincerity in settling my father?s murder. If the government wants to get the real perpetrators of the killing, it should resurrect the task force which investigated the case,? he said.

The accused were arrested on January 19, 2008. They are now being held in separate detention centers in Taguig City.