Fact-finding team suggests Filipino ethnobiologist was shot and killed by the military

12/09/2010 04:48:00 AM

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ABS CBN reports: "It was the military who shot and killed renowned plant taxonomist and ethnobiologist Leonard Co and his 2 companions, an independent fact-finding mission claimed on Wednesday. The mission, which is composed of members of the academe and cause-oriented group, presented its findings after conducting an investigation in the jungles of Kananga, Leyte, where Leonard and his team were slain on November 15. Mission head Giovanni Tapang of the scientists' group Agham said bullet trajectories at the site suggests that the gunshots all came from one direction. Evidence also suggests that Co and his group were the main targets of the gunmen, he added."

Update (2011-04-25): A website campaigning for justice for Leonard Co has been up and running for some time now. Please visit www.justiceforleonardco.org and learn more about what has been happening on this front.

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    Democracy, according to the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, is "a question of human dignity, [a]nd human dignity is political freedom, the right to freely express opinion and the right to be allowed to criticise and form opinions."

    But exercising political freedom in the Philippines, which purports itself to be a democracy, can lead to death. Since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency of the country in 2001, more than 800 Filipinos murdered in politically-motivated, extra-judicial, targeted killings. Since the 4th quarter of July 2005, one person has been killed every two days. The victims of these brazen acts of violence were all unarmed citizens: lawyers, judges, journalists, medical practitioners, members of cause-oriented groups, priests, church-workers, human rights advocates, laborers and farmers.

    It is widely believed—and the United Nations support this belief—that state security forces are complicit in these crimes.