The Netherlands has asked the Aquino government to hold accountable the gunmen who murdered a Dutch aid worker in an attack that stirred outrage among local activist and church groups.
Dutch Ambassador to Manila Robert Brinks expressed his shock over the killing of Willem Geertman, 67, who was shot by two men in front of his non-government organization’s office in San Fernando, Pampanga last Tuesday.
“Ambassador Brinks noted Geertman’s years of involvement with local development and humanitarian organizations and expressed his sincere
hope that authorities will hold those behind the killing accountable,” a statement released by the Dutch embassy said.
Police had originally identified the victim as “William Geertman” and insisted that robbery remains the primary motive in the incident.
But some activist groups linked the killing to the government’s fight against communist rebels, while others said it was related to a land dispute centering on the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita estate owned by the family of President Aquino.
Geertman was the executive director of the Alay Bayan Inc. (ABI), an affiliate of the Alyansang Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luzon, the mother unit of an alliance of farmers from Hacienda Luisita.
The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), a large alliance of non-Catholic organizations in the country, said Geertman’s death could not just be “dismissed as an act of robbery as was the police conclusion in the assassination of the Most Rev. Alberto Ramento in Tarlac.”
The NCCP, in a statement, said the victim was “known for his advocacy in defense of farmers, especially in Hacienda Luisita and his compassion for disaster victims.”
“The killing of Geertman builds on a sad chapter of continuing extra-judicial killings in the country. We will not dwell on the statistics but we decry the failure of the government to arrest and prosecute perpetrators of this wanton taking of human lives,” the NCCP said.
Both suggestions have been rejected by the government.
Fr. Edu Gariguez of the National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace (Nassa), for his part, raised doubts on the claims by the authorities.
“I think this is more than just a robbery,” Gariguez, in a statement said. “There is a continued pattern of extra-judicial killings of activists in the country and I would like to look at his death into this angle.”
“In case it will be proved that his death is linked with his advocacy for Luisita farmers, this is already scary,” the Catholic priest noted.
The embassy statement said the Netherlands had been active in working to improve the human rights situation in the Philippines, particularly with regard to the seeming impunity of powerful men in killing political opponents.
Police investigators were checking leads provided by witnesses of the shooting, police officer Menchu Nucup of the northern city of San Fernando, where the attack took place, yesterday told Agence France Presse.
She said the witnesses related how Geertman, who was working on an anti-malaria campaign in the country, resisted two armed men who were trying to snatch a bag containing money he had just withdrawn from the bank.
“They tried to pull the bag from him. They shoved him and he fell to his knees and then they shot him from behind,” she told AFP, quoting witnesses.
One activist group, the National Alliance of Indigenous People’s Organizations in the Philippines, said Geertman had been in the country for 46 years and had been active in championing the causes of farm workers and tribal folk and highlighting environmental concerns.
These included the proposed redistribution of the ancestral plantation of the clan of Aquino’s late mother to farm workers, activists said.
The Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the Hacienda Luisita workers in April, and ordered the government to effect its redistribution.     AFP