Another Luisita leader slain

ANGELES CITY — Armalite-wielding men shot dead an official of the Hacienda Luisita labor union while he was walking home with his father and brother from a friend’s house inside the vast sugar estate in Tarlac yesterday.

Police said Tirso Cruz, who led the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) in protesting the deployment of soldiers at the plantation controlled by the family of former President Corazon Aquino, was shot six times.

His father, Federico, and brothers Freddie and Ernesto were not hurt in the incident.

Cruz was a member of the ULWU board of directors and coordinator of the militant labor group Anakpawis for the 10 barangays comprising Hacienda Luisita. He was also a councilman of Barangay Pando inside the hacienda.

In October last year, Ricardo Ramos, former Central Azucarera de Tarlac labor union president, was killed at his home in Barangay Mapalacsiao, also inside Hacienda Luisita.

Several other labor leaders in the province have been murdered in the same fashion.

Witnesses said the 33-year-old Cruz, along with his father and two brothers, had left a friend’s house at 12:30 a.m. where they had attended a pasyon — a ritual of chanting to remember the Passion of Christ — when two gunmen on a motorcycle suddenly appeared and ambushed them.

Cruz’s younger brother Ernesto told The STAR: "His wounds are all near the back. He was really the target of the gunmen because although he was seated between my father and brother, they were not hit."

Ernesto added: "He told us during the strike that he might also be killed like his comrades."

He said his brother was shot close to a military detachment in Concepion town, but no soldier came to help.

"I was walking a little ahead of my father, and my two brothers," he said. "We were approaching our house already. And then gunfire ensued. I saw how they made sure that Tirso was dead."

At a press conference called by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Quezon City, Ernesto said he screamed for help from the nearby camp as one of the killers attacked his brother, but the military detachment seemed empty at the time.

"I was not sure if there was someone in the military detachment who could hear my scream for help," he said.

"It was early in the morning and it was dark. But I was screaming for help. I only saw the military from the detachment when my brother was already rushed to the hospital. And they did not even come out of the compound, they simply peeked."

Ernesto said the killers, who wore bandanas covering their faces, arrived suddenly and stopped immediately near his brother, then shot him at close range with a baby Armalite.

"Tirso was already lying dead on the ground but the gunman still shot him one more time before they left," he said.

Central Luzon police commander Chief Superintendent Alejandro Lapinid said police recovered nine M-16 shells from the crime scene.

Roman Polintan, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) chairman for Central Luzon, said Cruz was the 68th member of a militant group to be killed in Central Luzon since last year.

"Cruz was openly against the presence of the military at Hacienda Luisita since the strike started there," he said. "He had also led protest actions against the Subic-Clark-Tarlac tollway project which will traverse the hacienda," Polintan added.

Since the ULWU and the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) went on strike on Nov. 6, 2004, a total of 12 union members or their supporters have been killed, he added.

Polintan said seven strikers were killed in a violent dispersal at Gate 1 of the Hacienda Luisita on Nov. 16.

Among those killed were Alyansa ng Magbubukid ng Tarlac leader Marcelino Beltran who was shot dead at the west gate of the hacienda on Dec. 8; Tarlac City councilor Abelardo Ladera who was shot March 3; Bayan Muna secretary general for Tarlac Florante Collantes who was killed in his home in Camiling, Tarlac on Oct. 15; and CATLU president Ricardo Ramos who was also killed in his home in Barangay Mapalacsiao within the hacienda in Tarlac City on Oct. 25, he added.

Cruz was a key witness to the Nov. 16 Hacienda Luisita massacre in which seven people were killed when troops dispersed the strikers.

Cruz, also ANAKPAWIS coordinator for the 10 barangays in Hacienda Luisita, reportedly received numerous death threats during the strike, which ended in December last year, up until the time of his death.

Meanwhile, Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran, who is detained at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Hospital in Camp Crame, Quezon City, has condemned the murder of Cruz.

"Political repression under the Arroyo administration has intensified into more brazen killings of union leaders in the provinces and ruthless harassment of progressive parliamentarians in the cities," he said.

Beltran called on Commission on Human Rights Chairwoman Purificacion Quisimbing to take immediate action on the "record-breaking and ruthless killings of activists nationwide."

"These killings, suspected to be the work of Arroyo’s henchmen in the military, are obviously continuing up to now, and are even exacerbated by the intensifying political repression of legal and progressive organizations and individuals after the Presidential Proclamation 1017 and General Order No. 5," he said.

"The CHR should try to summon and probe Gen. Jovito Palparan and his men from the 71st ID stationed in Tarlac. Despite Palparan’s repeated denials of any knowledge of the killings, it is clear to any critical citizen that Palparan and his men have left a messy trail of bloodshed which points to only them as the possible perpetrators."

Workers at the 6,435-hectare Hacienda Luisita went on strike after management rejected the demands by ULWU and CATLU that the vast estate be placed under land reform instead of the stock distribution scheme (SDO) which entitles the workers to shares of stocks in Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI).

The workers also demanded wage increases and other benefits.

The strike ended on Dec. 8 last year, with the Department of Labor and Employment ordering HLI management to give the workers millions of pesos in benefits.

ULWU members got P1.69 million, while CATLU members got some P1.2 million.

On Dec. 20 last year, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council scrapped the SDO in favor of land distribution.

Reported financial difficulties, however, have prevented Luisita management from resuming full operations.

Last Jan. 2, Luisita lawyers filed before the PARC a motion for reconsideration, arguing that there was "no legal basis to cancel a fulfilled contract," referring to the Memorandum of Agreement signed in 1989 that formalized the SDO.

The lawyers also contended that the PARC violated the Constitution and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law when it revoked the SDO.

Following the scrapping of the SDO, Alfredo Reyes, Department of Land Reform head in Tarlac, issued a notice of coverage of land distribution covering four land titles of what supposedly remained of the original 6,453 hectares comprising Hacienda Luisita.

The coverage did not include the 500 hectares converted by HLI for industrial use in 1996 and the 77 hectares sold to the Base Conversion Development Authority for the construction of a portion of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac tollway.

Following the strike, about 50 militiamen and soldiers from the Army’s 7th Infantry Division under Gen. Jovito Palparan were deployed in Barangay Pando. — With reports from Katherine Adraneda, Len Espinosa