MANILA – The Department of Justice (DOJ) may investigate the murder of Negros-based activist and former political prisoner Zara Alvarez on Monday evening in Bacolod City.
Secretary Menardo Guevarra said they were assessing if the death of the human rights worker fell under the DOJ mechanism on politically-motivated killings.
“We may consider her case for special investigation under Administrative Order (AO) 35 after some fact-checking,” Guevarra said.
There is an ongoing AO 35 investigation into the killing of peasant leader Randall Echanis, who was found dead in Quezon City last week and buried just this Aug. 17.
Alvarez, 39, was shot on Monday night. She was a teacher, single mother, former campaign and education director, and current paralegal of human rights alliance Karapatan.
Bacolod City Police Station 3 chief Police Captain Richard Fajarito, who is investigating the killing, said they were looking into Alvarez’s affiliation with leftist organizations in determining the motive behind the attack.
“Hindi pa namin na-identify ‘yung suspect sa pagbaril,” Fajarito said. “Hindi pa natin makausap ang pamilya niya. Diyan din natin malalaman kung may personal siyang kaaway na baka gumawa rin sa kaniya ng ganito.”
Citing witnesses’ accounts, Fajarito said a man was seen fleeing from the crime scene along Sta. Maria Street in Ereco Subdivision, Bacolod City after bursts of gunfire were heard.
Some concerned citizens ran after the man but another person on a motorcycle gave him a ride.
“Parang planado ang pagpatay kay Zara,” said Fajarito.
Karapatan secretary-general Cristina Palabay said Alvarez was the 13th human rights worker from their group killed under the Duterte administration.
“When will the killings stop? We just buried a peace advocate and we’re not even through with mourning his death, but we now have to grapple with the killing of another colleague,” Palabay said.
Alvarez had been threatened, harassed, falsely charged with murder by the military in 2013, and detained, according to Palabay.
In 2014 Alvarez was released on bail and was acquitted just this March.
Alvarez and Echanis were among the 600 names originally included in DOJ’s petition to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) as terrorists.
The DOJ petition, still pending before a court in Manila, has since been drastically cut down to a few alleged officials of the CPP-NPA.
Alvarez was also included in the red-tagging posters that circulated in Bacolod City along with other activists and human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos who was killed in 2018.
“The military and police never ceased harassing her even when she was distributing rice to impoverished members of her barangay in April amid the mass hunger caused by lockdowns,” Palabay said.
Palabay said the deaths of Echanis and Alvarez suggested the killings were “part of an orchestrated murderous rampage to silence dissent, with human rights defenders as targets and fair game.”
“We have no doubt that State forces are behind her merciless murder — the latest in a string of killings in Negros since Memorandum Order No. 32 was implemented in November 2018,” Palabay said.
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers-Panay Chapter, in a separate statement, remembered how Alvarez helped them in cases involving summary killings, illegal arrests and other human rights violations in Negros Island.
“From Canlaon to Manjuyod, Sta. Catalina, Sagay, Escalante, Kabankalan, and Bacolod — wherever famers, peasant leaders, and rights advocates were imprisoned or killed — Zara was there to help the victims and their families get through the hardships brought by state-sponsored terror,” the lawyers’ group said.
“Her presence was a constant force in the struggle for justice — a beacon of light in a place that, for the past two years, has been shrouded by impunity,” they added./PN
