Bargamento, 46, married with five children was on board a tricycle with a nephew near his house past 4 p.m. last Wednesday at Hacienda Ginhulayan, Barangay (village) Tortosa, Manapla town when two men armed with .45 cal. pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun fired at him in quick succession. He had just come from a series of labor protests in Bacolod after which he also went to see a friend to borrow a “barong tagalog” he would wear for a child’s graduation. Manapla is 50 kms north of Bacolod.

WARNING: These photos contain graphic images

The labor leader sustained 22 bullet wounds in his body. His nephew and neighbors brought him to the Ikaayong Lawas Foundation Hospital in neighboring Victorias City – more than 10 kms from where the shooting took place. He died on the way.

Bargamento was the regional auditor and district organizer of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), the biggest federation of cane workers in the Philippines.

He is also the 33rd victim of political killings committed against progressive organizations and party-list groups nationwide since January. In Negros, government security forces and the paramilitary RPA-ABB have been accused by the militants as the culprits in the recent spate of killings.

Friends see Edwin Bargamento’s remains at a morgue

Manapla police vowed to arrest Bargamento’s killers. Three young men The victim’s nephew, told Bulatlat that both he and his uncle were on board a tricycle from the main highway when midway to the hacienda, an aura-type motorcycle with three young people overtook them. He said he recognized two of them. Approaching Edwin’s house crossing Hacienda Ginhulayan, he saw the three men - already wearing ski masks - waiting by the road about 10 meters from their house. As Edwin got down the tricycle two of the three men quickly walked toward the tricycle and fired several shots at him. The third man served as a lookout, the nephew said. The gunmen sped off after making sure that their victim is dead, he said.

In an interview, Butch Lozande, regional chair of NFSW-Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May 1^st Movement), blamed the RPA-ABB for the killing.

“NFSW organizers and members including Bargamento himself working in north Negros have been receiving threats from the RPA-ABB for the past months,” Lozande said.

Lozande added that armed men from RPA-ABB operating in north Negros are handled by a former military man, who now serves as a point man of the army intelligence command.

More than two years ago, Tay Pedring Trabajador, a local leader of NFSW chapter in San Isidro, Toboso town, was also gunned down by suspected RPA-ABB operatives backed by the military.

The victim’s wife, Vicenta Bargamento, told Bulatlat that for more than a month prior to the killing unidentified persons had been asking neighbors about their house, and the whereabouts and activities of her husband. She also saw men casing their house several times, she also said.

Last January, Vicenta said, she was invited to a “dialogue” by organizers from a yellow labor organization, Democratic Association of Labor Organizations (DALO), whose ring leaders were former NFSW members now believed to be linked to the RPA-ABB. She was warned to stop organizing for the NFSW, she told Bulatlat.

A relative, she said, had earlier warned that Edwin was on the RPA-ABB’s hit list. She also learned from a relative who is with the RPA-ABB that the handler of the renegade group is a military man.

Vicenta Bargamento, the victim’s wife Photo by CIRMS

AFP’s neutralization campaign Mary Jean Fuentes, district coordinator of NFSW in the near North, blamed both the military and the RPA-ABB for the killing of Bargamento saying that the killing was part of the AFP’s neutralization campaign against leaders, organizers and members of progressive and militant organizations. Julius Perez, secretary general of AnakPawis (toiling masses) party-list in Negros Occidental, said that Bargamento’s killing has only fired up their resolve to continue the struggle of the Filipino working class for justice. “We will not recoil in the struggle because he died with a cause, he is a martyr,” he said angrily, as he showed to Bulatlat a long list of leaders and organizers killed by state security and paramilitary forces.

Roy Cordova, spokesperson of Wage Increase Solidarity (WINS) in Negros, described the killing of Edwin as cowardly and a treachery by those who want to silence critics of government.

Cause-oriented organizations and members of the progressive bloc in Congress have recently been hot on the heels of the armed forces. A recent power point presentation, “Know the Enemy,” names these groups as “communist fronts.” The PPT has been denounced however as a virtual military hit list.

Exemplary leader-organizer

Since childhood, the medium-built, soft-spoken, and amiable Bargamento spent all his life in Hacienda Emma as a cane worker . His parents were also sugar workers.

NFSW members said that Bargamento organized the hacienda union after federation organizers came to their hacienda in 1984. Convinced of the organization’s cause, he volunteered to become a full-time organizer in the community, they said.

He also helped form more hacienda unions and troubleshoot complex labor-management disputes in several other towns and cities in north Negros.

Bargamento was both a model union leader and a good father to his family, Lozande said. He tried his best to provide for his family’s needs despite the meager allowance he was getting from labor organizing. With reports from Ranie Azue and Jovani Espartero of LIGA JOURNALISTA / Bulatlat

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