• THERESA MAE DULMAN
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) is demanding an immediate and independent investigation into the killing of 55-year-old farmer leader in Negros Occidental.
The group called on the government to hold perpetrators accountable for the murder of Warlita Jimenez in Sitio Makilo, Barangay Camansi, Kabankalan City.
The push for a formal probe stemmed from witness accounts detailing two armed men wearing bonnets forcibly breaking into the home of Jimenez at approximately 11 p.m. of December 23.
Reports said the neighbors heard the victim scream for help before four gunshots were fired.
“We call on Philippine authorities to immediately launch an investigation, hold the perpetrators accountable, and put an end to the spate of peasant killings and militarization in Negros island,” the group said.
The victim was the widow of Joseph Jimenez, a peasant leader who was executed in November 2022 in the same barangay, alongside National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultant Ericson Acosta.
The ICHRP said that the Jimenez couple were leaders of the local peasant organization ‘Paghiliusa sang mga Magagmay nga Mangunguma kag Mamumugon sa Brgy. Camansi’, which has been locked in a land dispute against a landlord family since the 1940s over 140 hectares of land covered by agrarian reform.
Advocates stated that Jimenez had been subjected to relentless red-tagging, harassment, and forced surrender attempts by state forces since her husband’s death.*
