(Eagle News) — Minority senators are seeking a probe into the deaths of nine sugarcane farmers in Sagay, Negros Occidental on Oct. 20.
In filing Senate Resolution No. 929, Senators Leila de Lima, Francis Pangilinan, Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, Antonio Trillanes IV and Franklin Drilon urged the government to look into the killings they believe were perpetrated by “powerful landowners..”
Earlier, leftist groups said landowners related to political clans were behind the killings of the farmers affiliated with the National Federation of Sugarcane Workers.
The police, however, has said the New People’s Army was behind the killings.
“Aside from the pockets of investigations led by various agencies seeking accountability for the lives lost in this eventuality, the government should not only prosecute those responsible to the killings but should probe and swiftly respond to the primal causes of the continued landlessness of many Filipino farmers that shackle them and their families to the chains of poverty and social injustice,” the senators added.
