The Waterlogged Files #06

                                                        The Waterlogged Files 06

                                                                “Murder in Broad Dayligh”

Time:  November 26, 1984 --So commonplace is violence in the southern Mindanao seaport of Zamboanga City that Mayor Cesar Climaco, 68, tallied the killings on a billboard outside the municipal hall. The mayor, a leading critic of the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos, last week became such a statistichiself as he was shot I broad dayight in the center of town. The assassin escaped. Inevitably, some Filipino blamed the killing on the Marcos regime. During the past two months three opposition figures in the south have been murdered, and many suspect that right-wing military elements were involved.

Climaco had been a constant critic of the government’s human rights abuses. When the President proclaimed martial law in 1972 , he vowed not to cut his hair until “pace and democracy are restored,” and his long white locks became his trademark. Marcos condemned the murder and ordered an investigation by the acting armed fores Chief of Staff Lieut. General Fidel Ramos. That did not appease the opposition. Said former Senator Salvador Laurel. “One by on out lfrd sr nrinhkillf ot eliminated.”   End