Body of slain Negros activist arrives home

JUSTICE Calls for justice are displayed at the wake of slain activist Zara Alvarez in Bacolod City before her remains were brought to her hometown Cadiz City. —GINO LOPEZ/CONTIRBUTOR

ILOILO CITY, Iloilo, Philippines — When the coffin of slain human rights activist Zara Alvarez was brought to her family’s house in Cadiz City in Negros Occidental province on Friday, her 11-year-old daughter refused to go near it.

“Other family members later convinced her to see her mother and told her that she has come home to rest,” Clarizza Singson, a close colleague and friend of Alvarez told the Inquirer by phone on Sunday.

Singson, secretary-general of the human rights group Karapatan in Negros and a godmother to Alvarez’s daughter, said she was trying to console the slain activist’s only child, an incoming Grade 6 pupil.

“She and their family are devastated. Who wouldn’t be?” Singson said. The family of Alvarez declined to be interviewed and has asked Singson to speak on their behalf.

Protest funeral march

A masked gunman repeatedly shot Alvarez as she was going home to her boarding house at Eroreco Subdivision in Barangay Mandalagan in Bacolod City on Aug. 17. She died from six bullet wounds, including three on the back.

Alvarez, 39, a paralegal of the human rights group Karapatan whose work involved documenting abuses committed to and the killings of rights workers and activists on Negros Island, was the first activist killed in Bacolod, the capital of Negros Occidental province, in recent memory.

Her remains were brought to Barangay Banquerohan at her hometown in Cadiz. A protest funeral march is set for Aug. 26 before her burial at the public cemetery.

Progressive organizations have accused government forces as responsible for the killing, citing the pattern of activists killed after being repeatedly Red-tagged or linked to the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, by the military and police.

Military and police officials have repeatedly denied the allegations.

Karapatan and other organizations are calling for an “independent and transparent” investigation on her killing, citing the lack of progress and resolution of more than 80 other killings of farmers, lawyers and other activists in Negros since 2017.

Independent investigations

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Office has also stressed the need for “independent, thorough and transparent investigations” on the killing of Alvarez and other activists in the Philippines.

“Effective measures must be taken to protect other at-risk human rights defenders and to halt and condemn incitement to hatred against them. We also call on the government to ensure that relevant agencies cooperate fully with investigations by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines,” Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Aug. 21.

While the wake for Alvarez was being held, eight more Negros-based activists, including Singson, have received death threats.

In text messages sent minutes apart on Saturday afternoon to lawyers belonging to the National Union of People’s Lawyers and to Karapatan Southern Tagalog, an unknown person said the nine people, including Alvarez, were “subjects for liquidation.”

Those named in the text message, some through their first names only, included Singson; Ereneo Longino, spokesperson and deputy secretary-general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan Negros; John Milton Lozande, secretary-general of National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW); Rey Alburo, spokesperson of Karapatan Negros; Felipe Gelle of the September 21 Movement in Negros; Iver Larit of Kadamay Negros; and “Tatay Ogie” and “Aldrin,” presumed to be colleagues of Lozande in the NFSW.

Singson said they had been taking the threats seriously, especially after the killing of Alvarez.

“We, of course, fear for our lives and safety. If they don’t accuse you of trumped-up charges, they will kill you. But if we allow ourselves to be cowed and forced into silence, the killings and abuses will continue,” she said.