DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 20, 2012) – Ten years have passed since her brutal killing by government troops in North Cotabato’s Arakan town, but Benjaline Hernandez’s colleagues from Ateneo de Davao University continue to cry for justice.
Hernandez was brutally killed along with three other companions on April 5, 2002 while she was working on a documentary of a massacre of innocent civilians in Arakan Valley.
“On November 21), Ate Beng should have been 33-years old and it has been ten years yet justice is still denied for the family, friends and fellow writers of our student martyr. We are very disappointed that under the three years of President Benigno Aquino, III not one perpetrator of the killing was prosecuted,” Almira Jane Villegas, Deputy Secretary General for Mindanao of College Editors Guild of the Philippines, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Hernandez was a former Features Editor of Atenews, and Vice-President for Mindanao of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, and also Deputy Secretary General of human rights group Karapatan in Southern Mindanao.
Atenews is the official student publication of Ateneo de Davao University.
Villegas, who is the current News Editor of ATENEWS, said that so long as the perpetrators of political killing remain scot-free the culture of impunity in the country remains.
“Ate Beng was killed under the Oplan Bantay Laya, the counter-insurgency program of the Arroyo government. Now with Oplan Bayanihan, of President Aquino, the killings continue,” Villegas said citing 114 cases of killings under the present government.
“Peace and development operations are actually posing threats to civilian populations. Schools and barangay facilities are being encamped by military. The International Humanitarian Law strongly prohibits the use of civilian infrastructures for military purposes. With this we are also supporting the calls to stop militarization in the communities and even in schools,” Villegas said.
20