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Volume 2, Number 5              March 10 - 16,  2002                   Quezon City, Philippines

Nonagenarian Slain by Army Troopers, Quezon Folk Say

Ninety-five-year-old (nonagenarian) Adriano Custodio was almost totally blind.  Still, when members of the 74^th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army found in his house last February 15 in Brgy. Mabini, Mulanay, Quezon the remains of a New People’s Army rebel, they went berserk.

By BULATLAT.COM

Human rights advocates in Mulanay, a farming town almost 250 kms. away from Manila, reported that the soldiers shot Adriano while he begged and cried to be spared late February. The old man was shot six times, stabbed on his side and his foot hacked with bolo.

Thinking he was dead, the soldiers left Adriano and took with them the body of the NPA. They dragged it around Mulanay on a carabao cart while shouting warnings against helping the NPA.

Adriano however lived long enough to tall his neighbors and relatives what happened. They took him to a government hospital in Lucena to save him but to no avail. Adriano died on February 22.

The old man was buried in Mulanay on February 26. The  funeral march passed in front of the 74^th IB PA headquarters in Catanauan, Quezon and the soldiers played rock music to drown out the voices of the protesting mourners.

Adriano lived alone with his grandchildren and was a member of the guerrilla army Hukbalahap during World War II. His neighbors and friends remember him for his warmth and generosity. Bulatlat.com

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