Indigenous people’s organizer Jay-Ar Mercado, 25, was brutally killed last Jan. 26, in Oriental Mindoro by suspected elements of the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, in yet another case of extrajudicial killing under the Duterte administration.
The military took his remains from a local funeral parlor. Mercado was buried on Jan. 31, without even his relatives being informed, deliberately violating their rights to claim his remains and have him properly buried.
His body was finally exhumed on Feb. 5; an examination showed it had a broken left hand, smashed nose, and multiple bullet wounds.
According to the fact-finding team of the human rights group Karapatan-Timog Katagalugan, witnesses recounted that Mercado was alive when he was taken away by suspected soldiers.
Before the cold-blooded murder, Mercado, a member of Bigkis at Lakas ng mga Katutubo-Timog Katagalugan, was doing community organizing work in Oriental Mindoro.
For seven years, he lived among the Mangyan when he could have looked for a paid job to support his family and live a normal life like most millennials. Instead, he chose to serve the indigenous people and the peasants in the countryside.
But the state forces would do anything to keep things as they are for the poor by targeting those they deem a threat to the status quo, mainly members of progressive organizations who are working with slum and remote communities.
This is the case for peasant leaders Emerito Pinza and Romy Candor of Pinagkaisang Ugnayan ng mga Magsasaka sa Laguna, who were also red-tagged and killed by the military last January in Kalayaan, Laguna.
It should be noted that all these killings happened just days after the red-tagging Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade was appointed as the new Southern Luzon military commander.
Apparently, the government’s counterinsurgency program is geared toward protecting the interests of private corporations instead of addressing the roots of the armed insurgency.
The Duterte regime cowardly targets unarmed organizers and volunteers of legal mass organizations to preserve the ruling system dominated by imperialists, big landlords, and compradors.
Justice for Jay-Ar Mercado! Justice for all the victims of state killings!
DANIEL ALOC
tierra.giya@yahoo.com