Peasant Leader Killed In Southern Philippines

Militant labor leader Celso Pojas, of the Farmers' Association of Davao City, during a rally May 12, 2008 in Davao City in southern Philippines. Pojas, also the vice chairman of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, was killed by two motorcycle gunmen May 15, 2008 just outside the FADC office. (BAYAN photo)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / May 15, 2008) - A militant labor leader was gunned down Thursday in the southern Philippines, where security forces are battling communist insurgents.

Celso Pojas, leader of the Farmers’ Association of Davao City and spokesman for the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, was killed by two motorcycle gunmen outside their office in Davao City.

Pojas, 45, was also the vice chairman of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), tagged by the Philippine military as a front of the communist New People’s Army rebels.

“He is a good man who had been fighting for the rights of the oppressed. We condemn the killing of a good man and we accused the military as behind his murder,” Jeppie Ramada, BAYAN Secretary-General, told the Mindanao Examiner.

He said Pojas had been receiving death threats from suspected military men who had been tailing the militant leader since last year. “Armed men, sporting military haircut, had previously warned Ka Celso that he would be killed because of his activities as a peasant leader,” Ramada said.

“The killing of Ka Celso is politically motivated because he was a staunch supporter of human rights and his being against continued militarization in many parts of Davao and Compostela Valley provinces and other areas in southern Mindanao” Ramada said.

No group or individual claimed responsibility for the murder and the military flatly denied any involvement in the killing of Pojas.

“We have nothing to do with it. We respect human rights. Let us wait for the investigation of the police,” Major Raymundo Aguada, a spokesman for the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, said in a separate interview.

The Philippine military previously tagged Pojas’ groups as fronts of the New People’s Army rebels fighting for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)