Press Release
December 13, 2006

GMA SHOULD RESIGN IF SHE CANT STOP
AND SOLVE RASH OF KILLINGS

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) denounced the killing of the son of Mayor Tirso G. Lacanilao of Apalit, Pampanga and the governments inability to stop the wave of killings of political activists and ordinary citizens, as well as to solve these gruesome crimes.

This mornings killing of the son of Mayor Lacanilao of Apalit, Pampanga and ongoing extermination of human rights activists is a palpable proof of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos inability to govern this country. She should resign now, he said.

Only a week ago, Asst. Solicitor General Nestor J. Ballacillo and his son, Benedict Paul, were gunned down by two suspected assassins while waiting for a public transport near their house in Sucat, Paraaque.

Pimentel called on the Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation to cooperate in their efforts to arrest those responsible for the deaths of Nestor, 57 and Benedict Paul, 22.

He also asked President Arroyo, as Chief Executive, to ensure that other government agencies cooperate with the PNP and NBI in solving the murders.

Otherwise, she will go down in history as a most insensitive president who could not care less what happens to other people as long as she is ensconced safely in her perch in Malacañang , Pimentel said.

Just last Dec. 7, Ponciano Grande, a former newspaper columnist, was shot and killed by two men while visiting his farm in Barangay Sta. Arcadia in Cabanatuan City.

Grande, 53, a former director of the Nueva Ecija Press Club, was the 11th Filipino journalist to be killed this year, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

Since 1986, a total of 86 journalists have been killed in the country about half of whom were killed during the Arroyo presidency.

Last Monday, Cris Frivaldo, a lawyer of the party list group Bayan Muna was shot dead in Barangay Gubat, Irosin, Sorsogon. The human rights group Karapatan said he was the 794th victim of extra-judicial killings since 2001.

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