Alleged NPA kill farm caretaker in Negros Occidental town

By Carla Gomez
Visayas Bureau
First Posted 16:25:00 06/17/2008


BACOLOD CITY, Philippines -- Around 30 suspected members of the New People's Army (NPA) shot dead the overseer of a sugarcane plantation in the northern Negros Occidental town of Manapla on Monday, a police official said.

Senior Inspector Jose Laboyo, Manapla police chief, said Hermes Ostan, 39, Ostan was declared dead on arrival at the Teresita Lopez Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City from gunshot wounds in the stomach.

Ostan was overseer of Hacienda Mary Ann in Barangay (village) San Pablo, which was owned by Freda Regalado before it was placed under agrarian reform.

The police and military said the killing of Ostan could have been retaliation for the murder of a local leader of the leftist National Federation of Sugarcane Workers (NFSW) on June 6.

Ostan was killed 11 days after Armando Dolorosa, vice president of an agrarian reform group based in Hacienda Mary Ann that was affiliated with the NFSW, was gunned down by three men wearing ski masks.

Police said 30 suspected NPA guerrillas, including three women, armed with M-16 and M-14 assault rifles, entered the hacienda compound looking for Ostan.

When they found Ostan in the hacienda warehouse, they hogtied him and took him outside then shot him six times in front of several residents.

Ostan was one of five persons invited for questioning by the Manapla police in connection with Dolorosa's death.

Laboyo said Ostan had denied any involvement in Dolorosa’s murder.

However, the police officer said he believed the killings of Ostan and Dolorosa are related.

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Dar, 15th Infantry Battalion commander, said Ostan’s killers withdrew towards Barangay Hiyang-Hiyang in Cadiz City.

Laboyo said the agrarian reform beneficiaries in Hacienda Mary Ann used to be members of the Democratic Association of Labor Organizations, an NFSW rival.

However, they affiliated themselves with NFSW after receiving certificates of land ownership award (CLOA) from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) last year.

Ostan was killed a day after Dolorosa was buried Sunday at the public cemetery of Manapla.

Police have said the suspects in Dolorosa's killing could be guns for hire.