Slaughter of Innocents

MURDER OF CRIME SUSPECTS: In September 2007, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has issued a statement regarding the pattern of murders wherein the victims of extra-judicial executions, most of them are crime suspects, are killed with banner/placards hung on their necks, saying they are criminals, or had committed a crime in justifying their deaths.

This nature of murders though, as it is reported in this report, is common not only in Metro Manila, but also in other places in the Philippines.

The report above had claimed that the dead body could be that of a person who had criminal record charged for robbery. The paper recovered from the victim’s body, which contains a certificate of discharge (from a detention facility), had a name Luis Canafuego, 35 years of age and a resident of Tondo, Manila, on it.

It could not be immediately known however whether the name on the paper and the dead man are the same. The dead body has had placards on its neck, which says “Holdaper ‘to wag pamarisan (He was a robber, do not be like him), imputing that he was a person of bad character.

When the dead body was found by a passers by, his entire face has had adhesive tape wrapped around it, his neck strangled with metal wires, his hands had handcuffs on behind his back and had skulls and snake tattoo marks on his right arm. It is reported that he could of died from strangulation.