Manila: A special investigation body identified a resort owner as a suspected mastermind in the killing of a lawyer of environment activists in Bohol central Philippines, sources said, adding that environment activists called for a thorough investigation. She was the 112th environmentalist killed since early 2000.
Composed of personnel of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, National Bureau of Investigation, and the Philippine National Police in Tagbilaran, the investigation body identified a resort owner in Panglao, Bohol as the alleged mastermind in the killing of Mia Manuelita Mascarinas-Green on Zamora Street, San Isidro village, in Tagbilaran before five in the afternoon of February 15.
The four gunmen who pumped 27 bullets from calibre 45 and 9mm on the neck of Mascarinas-Green were also identified as residents of Davao del Sur and Davao del Norte, in southern Philippines, said Senior Inspector Reslin Abella, spokesman of PNP Tagbilaran.
Mascarinas-Green represented a client who raised an environment issue against the resort owner, said Abella, but did not give more details.
Marcarinas-Green was ambushed while she was driving a van with her twins, aged two, a 10-year old daughter, and a housemaid, near her home. Doctors declared her dead on arrival when brought to a nearby hospital. Her children and maid survived the incident, police records said.
She was the 112th environmental activists killed since 2002, Naderev Sano, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia told Gulf News.
Noting that the assassination of Mascarinas-Green proved that being an environmental activist is a dangerous political mission in the Philippines, Sano said, “Killers are trying to stop people from protecting our environment, and from attacking those who are destroying our environment (for profit).”
“Killers of environment activists were never found nor persecuted, the reason why environment activists are being killed with impunity,” said Clemente Bautista of Kalikasan.
For example, 12 environment activists died since July 2016, and their killers were never identified, and the cases never thoroughly investigated Bautista complained.
Some 33 environment activists were killed in 2015. At the time, the Philippines ranked second to Brazil in having the most number of environmentalists who perished for their cause,
