From the Mindanao Examiner (Oct 3): Gunmen kill tribal leader in the Southern Philippines
A leader of a Higaonon indigenous tribe, who was fighting for their ancestral
rights, had been killed in an attack Wednesday in the southern province of
Misamis Oriental. Gilbert Paborada, also the chairman of the organization
called Pangalasag, was brutally killed inside a house that has become his
sanctuary for months now, according to the Alliance for the Advancement of
People's Rights. The group cited the news of Paborada’s death on a report
by the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in Northern Mindanao (RMP-NMR). It
said Paborada was a human rights defender at-risk....
http://mindanaoexaminer.com/news.php?news_id=20121003092048
Often times CPP/NPA units enter a local area to do a "social invesitigation" in order to determine local issues that might be expolited. They then establish local committees/ organizations to organize peasant resistance to local authorities or corporations. This may be the case here. Pangalasag has been vocal in its opposition to the alleged "land grabbing" of A. Brown Company, Inc, an American corporation that operates a palm oil plantation in Opol. The pro-CPP Bulatlat published an extenisve article on the local indigenous people's group Pangalasag earlier this year.
ReplyDeleteSee the pro-CPP online publication Bulatlat (May 12): "The took our land by force"
http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/05/10/%E2%80%98they-took-our-land-by-force%E2%80%99/