House probe sought on Dutchman's killing

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines – Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano has asked the human rights committee of the House of Representatives to conduct an inquiry into the killing of Dutch missionary Willem Geertman here.

Mariano filed House Resolution 2551 citing reports that Geertman had purportedly received death threats as a “peasant advocate” before he was slain last week.

Mariano said the victim’s brother, Antonius Ma. Alfonsius Geertman, is also urging the Philippine government to consider Geertman as “a victim of extrajudicial killing due to his involvement in campaigns against landlessness, mining, logging and a large freeport project in Aurora province.”

Antonius, together with a sister, flew in from the Netherlands to attend the burial of Geertman in Baler, Aurora last Sunday.

Geertman, executive director of Alay Bayan Inc., was shot dead by two unidentified men a few meters from his office in Barangay Telebastagan here on July 3.

Police said Geertman was apparently robbed since he had withdrawn some P1.2 million from a bank just before he was slain.

“Antonius believes that the killing of his brother is much more than just ordinary robbery for money,” Mariano said.

Mariano said Antonius revealed that his brother had received death threats since four years ago “owing to his work as lay missionary involved in campaigns to save the forests as a resource for farmers, Dumagats, and Cordillerans.”

Mariano also cited the report of the human rights group Karapatan and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) in Central Luzon that Geertman had been a supposed victim of the military’s “vilification and harassment” since the 1990s.