Aquino asked to act on corruption in Davao LTFRB
I write, in behalf of the 60,000 members of the Alliance of Progressive Labor, to call on President Aquino to immediately act on the recent assassination of Antonio “Dodong” Petalcorin, whose name is now added to an ever-growing list of extrajudicial killings in the country, victimizing trade unionists.
Dodong was the president of the Davao City-based Network of Transport Organizations, an affiliate of the National Confederation of Transport Workers’ Union. He was shot three times in the chest by an assassin at about 8 a.m. on July 2, 2013, as he was leaving his home to go to the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) in Davao City.
The assassin was caught on CCTV camera as he casually walked away and rode a motorcycle to escape the scene of the crime. It is believed that the murder was linked to Dodong’s campaign to expose corruption at the LTFRB, which started in October 2012.
On Jan. 25, 2013, Emilio Rivera, former chair of an independent transport workers’ organization, Matina Aplaya Transport Cooperative, a colleague of Dodong and one of his co-complainants to a corruption case against the LTFRB director in Davao, was murdered near the offices of the LTFRB. Last May 21, a third complainant, Carlos Cirilo, survived an attack by sheer luck—a grenade lobbed into his home did not explode.
We call on the President to exert special effort in order to stop this murderous rampage against human rights defenders and bring to justice those behind these heinous criminal and terroristic acts. We hope that all those involved, especially the mastermind, will be immediately identified and prosecuted. This will certainly go a long way in easing the grief of the victims’ families.
In pursuit of the cause of the assassinated leaders, we ask also that the President decisively address the issues that Dodong and his colleagues in Davao City have been fighting for and which is likely the motive for his killing: the corruption at the LTFRB office in Davao City. This will ensure that he did not die in vain.
—JOSUA MATA,
secretary general,
Alliance of Progressive Labor,
94 Sct. Delgado St.,
Barangay Laging Handa,
Quezon City 1103, [email protected]
