Sumilao farmer-leader assassinated

Rene Penas led march on Manila from Bukidnon to highlight plight of landless

Malaybalay City – two unidentified armed men killed a leader of the Sumilao farmers, a group that actively pushed for agrarian reform, and wounded his two companions in an ambush late Friday night in Sumilao, Bukidnon.

The ambush came two days after the House of Representatives approved a law extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for five years, an advocacy pursued relentlessly by Rene Penas, 51, when he led a 1,700-kilometer march all the way from Sumilao to Metro Manila in 2007 to dramatize the plight of landless farmers.

“Penas did not make it to the hospital,” said Sumilao’s acting chief of police Rae Vasquez, who added that the victim had tried to crawl away but he was shot again by the two men who fled on foot.

The victim was driving a motorcycle and was bringing Eliezer Penas, a relative, and Samson Dolleto to his farm when they were ambushed in Purok 1, Barangay San Vicenete around 11p.m.

Vasquez said the gunmen used shotguns, based on the empty shells recovered at the scene. Penas was hit in the left chest and died instantly, while Eliezer and Dollete were rushed to the hospital but were later allowed to go home.

“We are still investigating all possible angles so that we cannot say what the motive was,” Vasquez said. Among the angeles they are looking at is Penas’ advocacy work, he added.

Noland Penas, the victim’s eldest child told Inquirer that hs father recently met with farmers from nearby estate who sought his help after they complained about the intrusion into their farms by another group.

Shrugged off threats

He said his father, more popularly known among farmers’ groups as Ka Rene, had received threats prior to the attack. But the farmer-leader had shrugged off the threats.

Even after their group won their case against the management of the Quisumbing Estate in Sumilao, Penas did not rest but joined other farmers in their quest for genuine land reform.

“We won”

On May 30, Penas was jubiland when the House passed a bill providing for the extention of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program for five more years.

“Nidaug na ta! (We won!)” was his last text message to fellow farmers and sympathizers.

At the time of his death, Penas was a barangay councilor of San Vicente. He was recently elected national president of the Pambansang Kilusan ng Samahang Magsasaka or Pakisama.

Balaod Mindanaw, a local non-government organization helping farmers with land-related legal problems, said it was sending a team of laywers to make a parallel investigation.

“We condemn the death of Rene,” Normi Batula, Balaod Mindanaw managing director, said in a statement. ” It is so painful to lose a great farmer-leader who aggresively pushed forward land issues. We demand justice for his death.”

Agrarian reform advocates and friends were shocked by the incident. “Ka Rene has done enough walking in his short life. He walked all the way from Sumilao in all kinds of weather, in tsinelas, to Manila along with hundreds of other farmers that loved the land that gave them a reason for living,” said singer-activist Leah Navarro.

Navarro said listening to Ka Rene was a humbling experience and it made her feel small and her dreams insignificant.

Shocking, senseless

“The brutal killing of Ka Rene is shocking and senseless. He was a model farmer leader who was fearless but dedicated to democractic ways, with a lively sense of humor,” said Christian Monson, chair f the farmers’ group Task Force Mapalad. “As a paralegal and elected kagawad of his barangay, he helped other farmer groups and the national campaign for CARPer. His death is a great loss to the agrarian reform community.”

Penas raised his four children and sent them to school but tilling his own land, easily becoming a “success story” of CARP.

“He is testimony to the empowerment by CARP, managing, by tilling the land, to send three children through college, with the fourth in her first year.” Monsod said.

Critical UN report

Penas’ murder came less than a week after a UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings critized the Philippines for its failure to put in place measures to stop attacks on left-wing farmers, labor organizers, activists and journalists.

“The government has failed to make sufficient substantive progress and, in some cases, has made no progress at all,” Philip Alston said in a report to the 11th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva this week.

“Although the number of extrajudicial executions of members of civil society organizations has greatly diminished, too many cases continued to be reported and far too little accountability has been achieved for the perpetrators.

In 2006, the UN documented about 220 cases of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. The number of murders was reduced to 94 cases in 2007 and 64 cases last year. –Grace Albasin and Ma. Cecilia Rodriquez, Inquirer Mindanao with YJ Burgonio and Reuters