Fairness and justice is what the poor and the oppressed need from those elected to protect and serve them. When the people are in greatest need and government officials turn away then the people have been betrayed, abandoned and left without help. This is what I experience everyday in our struggle to get justice for the victims of human trafficking, child sexual abuse. But there is little justice. The rich and powerful can buy a way out of their crimes. It happens also to the farmers and the urban poor. Their oppressors kill with impunity.
That is what is happening to the Panay Fair Trade group in Panay Island, central Philippines. Some members of the Panay Fair Trade farmers cooperative have been harassed, brutalized and their leaders assassinated. One day Last March 2014 Romy was with his mother-in-law at the public market when a motor cycle with two men drew close to him and opened fire shooting him in the head. His mother-in-law went into shock, and the killers and murders escaped on the motorbike.They were only fifty meters from a police station. Romy Capalla, died on the spot. He paid the ultimate price for his solidarity with the poor. The same day fifteen kilometers away the small sugar mill of the farmers cooperative was mysteriously burnt to the ground by unknown arsonists. But the Philippine government has turned a blind eye to it all.
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