Another Bayan Muna leader slain

TACLOBAN CITY — The Eastern Visayas coordinator of Bayan Muna was gunned down here Monday night, just four months after the regional head of another party-list group, Anakpawis, was slain.

The victim, lawyer Fedelito Dacut, 51, was about to ride a passenger Multicab when two motorcycle-riding men wearing ski masks shot him with a caliber .45 pistol, at the corner of Arellano and Real streets at about 6:30 p.m.

Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, in a phone interview, condemned Dacut’s killing and asked Malacañang and Congress to intervene in what he described as "comprehensive, systematic and well-planned" attacks on their party-list group’s regional coordinators since 2001.

"Well, the military is our primary suspect although we cannot just pinpoint our fingers kung sino sa kanila (as to who among them)," Ocampo said.

On Oct. 15 last year, Samuel Bandila, Anakpawis’ regional coordinator, was also murdered here. The case remains unsolved.

Last March 9, Romeo Sanchez, Bayan Muna’s Ilocos regional coordinator, was shot dead in Baguio City.

Six days earlier, Danilo Macapagal, a leader of Bayan Muna in Cabanatuan City, was seized. He remains missing.

On March 13, Aglipayan priest Rev. Fr. William Tadena, who was involved in both Bayan Muna and Anakpawis, was shot dead in La Paz, Tarlac. Suffering the same fate was Tarlac City councilor Abelardo Ladera a few days earlier.

Anti-communist vigilante groups have owned up to the killings of Ladera and Tadena. Reacting to the military’s claims, the New People’s Army denied having any hand in the twin slayings.

Police has formed Task Force Dacut headed by Senior Superintendent Conrado Calvario, to investigate the lawyer’s killing.

Maj. Neneveigh Alcovindas, the Armed Forces’ civil relations chief, called on the public to volunteer information to help solve the gunslaying. — With Benjie Villa