Case vs soldiers in Luisita union worker’s slay dormant?

ANGELES CITY — The lawyer of two soldiers accused in the killing of Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) president Ricardo Ramos said yesterday that the case has remained dormant in the Tarlac prosecutor’s office.

Tarlac City police director Superintendent Rudy Lacadin, a member of the Task Force Ramos created by Central Luzon police director Chief Superintendent Alejandro Lapinid soon after the union leader was killed, said his team filed murder charges with the Tarlac City prosecutor’s office against two Army soldiers and three others identified only as John Does a month after the killing.

But lawyer Nelson Palaris of the Judge Advocate General’s Office (JAGO) who acts as a legal counsel for the accused, told The Star that he and his clients have not received any notice from the prosecutor’s office for preliminary investigation.

"The prosecutor’s office was supposed to issue a resolution on the case within three months after the filing of the case, but up to now we have not received any notice from the prosecutor," Palaris said.

Lacadin said that PFC Romeo Castillo, PFC Roderick de la Cruz, and three other unidentified soldiers with the 7th Infantry Division were named respondents in the murder charge filed by his task force.

Ramos was shot in a hut in his backyard in Barangay Mapalacsiao within Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City amid a strike by hacienda workers over issues of land reform and wage and other benefits. Militant leaders have claimed that 12 persons associated with hacienda labor unions have already been killed since the strike began in November, 2004, the latest being Tirso Cruz, a director of the United Luisita Workers’ Union who was shot dead last Friday.

Senior Superintendent Perfecto Palad, head of Task Force Ramos, said he was no longer aware of any development on the Ramos case, and referred queries to Lacadin.