ANGELES CITY – The activist fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) urged yesterday Pres. Aquino to order a “massive manhunt” for still unidentified suspects who killed 20 fishermen on three fishing boats off Sibago island in Basilan last Monday.
In a press statement, Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said “Malacanang should mobilize all the resources to identify the perpetrators of Basilan massacre and bring the people behind this mass murderer of fishermen before the bar of justice.”
“The killing of small fisherfolk like chickens is unpardonable. In the name of truth and justice; we demand a decisive thorough investigation by the Aquino administration,” he said.
Hicap also said “those with vested interests and cruel intentions in keeping Mindanao as their own republic and unholy land for plunder and exploitation could be behind this gruesome massacre.”
He theorized that the massacre “could be part of a grand design to justify the across-the-island militarization of Mindanao, as well as the intervention of US military forces in the highly militarized but resource rich island in the South.”
“We express our condolences and sympathy to the relatives of small fisherfolk …If this is part of the sinister agenda to transform Mindanao into a police state according to military strategists of the United States and the ruling clique in Malacanang, then this should be exposed and denounced,” added Hicap.
Marine Col. Jose Johriel Cenabre, operations officer of the Naval Forces in Western Mindanao, said the bodies of the slain fishermen were recovered and brought here to Zamboanga City.
Chief Superintendent Bienvenido Latag, Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao police director, said the fishermen were aboard three fishing boats when attacked by an unspecified number of gunmen.
