Anti-mining activist shot dead in Cagayan

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan, Philippines—A leader of an anti-mining group in Cagayan was shot dead in Buguey town on Monday afternoon, police said on Tuesday.

Senior Superintendent Moro Virgilio Lazo, Cagayan police director, said Gensun Agustin, 30, was on his way home aboard his motorcycle when two men on another motorcycle shot and killed him in Barangay (village) Calamegatan at 4:15 p.m.

Agustin, an aide of Buguey Mayor Ignacio Taruc, was one of the leaders of the Alliance for Buguey Community Advocates (Albucoda) and a member of the Federation of Anti-Mining Advocates in Cagayan (Famac). These groups are opposing illegal mining in the province and have been conducting information dissemination campaigns and community forums on the impact of illegal mining on the province’s environment.

Agustin died from bullet wounds in the head and body. Investigators found two shells from a 9-mm pistol at the crime scene.

Chief Inspector Edward Guzman, Buguey police chief, said Agustin, on February 22, reported to the police that two men, whom he identified in the police blotter as Junel Singson and Florante Aytona, chased him. Agustin said one of them was carrying a handgun.

Guzman said police have been looking into Agustin’s involvement in local politics and his anti-mining advocacy as possible motives in the attack.

Taruc, who is running for representative in Cagayan’s first district, said Agustin’s involvement in the campaign against the impact of illegal magnetite mining in Buguey might have irked some local leaders.

“This is the biggest factor [behind the killing], I believe. Gensun had denounced some provincial officials for pushing magnetite mining, which is destructive to the environment,” Taruc said.

The magnetite is taken from the black sands of Cagayan’s beaches. Environmentalists fear that the extraction of magnetite, which keeps the sand together, would lead to floods in the province. Environmental officials, however, have denied the existence of magnetite mining on a wide scale feared by environmentalists.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20100302-256222/Anti-mining-activist-shot-dead-in-Cagayan