Son of first victim of extrajudicial killing under Aquino brings father’s case to the UN

“I vow to pursue justice for my father”

By HUSTISYA
May 24, 2012

QUEZON CITY  –  The son of the first victim of extrajudicial killing under the Aquino administration will bring his father’s case to the United Nations as it conducts its Universal Periodic Review on the Philippines scheduled on May 29, 2012.

Joining the Philippine UPR Watch delegation, which just arrived today in Geneva, Switzerland, is Ernan Baldomero, son of Fernando Baldomero, a municipal councilor of Lezo town in Aklan, an island province in Western Philippines. The elder Baldomero was killed on July 7, 2010 as he was about to send Ernan’s younger brother to school.

The Philippine UPR Watch is a delegation of human rights defenders and advocates that engages in the Universal Periodic Review process of the UN Human Rights Council and brings to the attention of the UN and the international community the human rights situation in the Philippines.

“I vow to pursue justice for my father, and show the international community that we are the living proof that nothing has changed since Pres. Benigno Aquino became president. I have even gone as far as the UN to find justice,” Baldomero said.

Ernan, who has replaced his father as Lezo Municipal Councilor, is vice-chairperson of Hustisya (Justice) or Victims United for Justice, the organization of families of victims of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations.

The 34-year old Baldomero was a student activist during his college days, inspired and influenced by his father who was a former political prisoner and Martial Law activist. After college, he became a member of various newspapers in the province, not letting go of his activism. He did not know, however, that he shall continue in the name of justice for his father.

“Almost two years after my father was killed, I feel nothing but dismay in the Aquino government’s denial of the continuing policy of extrajudicial killings, and breathes the suffocating air of impunity making perpetrators free and unpunished,” Baldomero said.

The case of Fernando Baldomero was mentioned by Pres. Aquino in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in late July 2010, as one of the first cases which was considered “solved.”

Baldomero dispels this, however, and said that his father’s case was archived last year while the arrest warrant for the suspect, Dindo Lovon Ancero, was not served.