Kin of 1st activist slain under Aquino still seeking justice 3 years after

ILOILO CITY—The family of Fernando Baldomero, the first political activist murdered under the Aquino administration, is still seeking justice three years after his death.

“The three years of the Aquino government mark three years of injustice to my father and to the hundreds more who fell victim to extrajudicial killings under the current administration,” said Baldomero’s son, Ernan, in a statement released to mark the third death anniversary of his father on Friday.

Ernan, vice chair of Hustisya, an organization of families of victims of extra-judicial killings, lamented that no arrests have been made three years after President Aquino announced in his first State of the Nation Address that Baldomero’s case was among those the government was resolving.

“For a government that declared [itself] to be different and better than its predecessor, the outright denial of justice for my father is unacceptable, in the same way that it is unacceptable that the likes of [retired Gen.] Jovito Palparan and [former Palawan Gov.] Joel Reyes are still at large, and that the Ampatuans are allegedly offering money as settlement to the victims,” Ernan said.

Baldomero was shot dead by a lone gunman in front of his rented house in the capital town of Kalibo in Aklan on July 5, 2010. The gunman fled on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.

Baldomero, 61, who was the provincial chair of the partylist group Bayan Muna and a reelected Lezo town councilor, died from multiple bullet wounds. A Liberal Party member and party mate of the President, Baldomero died just four days after he assumed his second term of office.

A murder complaint was filed at the Aklan provincial prosecutor’s office on Aug. 3, 2010, against Dindo Ancero and several unidentified persons.

Ancero, 35, a resident of Malingin, Bogo City, Cebu, was identified by witnesses as the lone gunman who shot dead Baldomero, according to investigators.

The prosecutor’s office issued a resolution on Sept. 13, 2010, finding probable cause against the suspects, and filed the information in November 2010. The case was raffled to the Kalibo Regional Trial Court Branch 2.

The court issued a warrant of arrest against Ancero on Jan. 11, 2011, but the case was archived on Oct. 7, 2011, due to the failure to arrest Ancero, according to the records of the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor.

Police Officer 3 Nida Gregas, public information officer of the Aklan Provincial Police Office (Appo), said the task of arresting Ancero was given to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group after the Appo disbanded Task Force Baldomero when it concluded the investigation on the case.

Investigators had not identified the motive in the killing of Baldomero.

But his family believed he was killed because of his activism and past involvement in the rebel movement.

Baldomero was among the youth activists who went underground in Manila shortly after martial law was declared in 1973.

He rose to become one of Panay Island’s top commanders of the New People’s Army until he was arrested in Jaro District in Iloilo City in 1993.

After his release from the Antique Rehabilitation Center following the dismissal of the criminal cases filed against him, Baldomero went home to Lezo to operate a lumber business.

He then joined politics in 1997 when he became a village councilor. He lost when he first ran as town councilor in 2004 but was successful when he ran again in 2007. He was reelected in the May 10, 2010, elections, garnering the third highest number of votes among the councilors.