Lawmaker calls anew for justice for Kidapawan massacre victims

ANAKPAWIS Partylist Representative Ariel Casilao has lamented the Duterte administration's failure to deliver justice to the individuals who were harmed during the violent dispersal of protesters blocking the Davao-Cotabato highway in Kidapawan City on April 2016. The lawmaker made the call on the second year of Kidapawan massacre on Sunday, April 1. During the said date, at least two from the thousands of farmers who then demanded the immediate release of the calamity fund from the local government due to severe hunger caused by El Niño have died. More than a dozen others were wounded. Casilao said that despite the filing of administrative complaint against North Cotabato Local Government Unit led by Governor Emmylou Mendoza, North Cotabato Philippine National Police Chief Alexander Tagum and others, not a single official was held accountable. “Failure to improve the lives of farmers through free land distribution, adequate support services in times of calamity will push poor and landless peasants to assert their right to government aid," Casilao said.

"Anakpawis condemned in the highest term possible the continuing complicity of the government to exact justice to farmers’ victims of various forms of violence in particular sponsored by the state itself," he added. Casilao said that the killing of peasants shows the Duterte Government's disregard to life of the underprivileged. According to Tanggol Magsasaka and Karapatan, more than 110 farmers have already been killed under the current administration.

(SunStar Philippines)