KARAPATAN / MANILA BULLETIN
According to Karapatan, the Baras Municipal Police Station has refused to release Vilma Salabao’s remains to her bereaved family.
Salabao was one of five farm workers in a private mango farm in Barangay San Juan who had been tagged as communist rebels and shot dead by authorities.
The group identified the other slain farm workers based on morgue records as Wesley Obmerga, Carlito Zonio, and Jhonatan and Niño Alberga.
They were killed when joint police and military operatives went to the area to serve the warrant of arrest against Antonio Cule, an alleged finance officer of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippine (CPP).