Gunmen forced Dutch to kneel and shot him

GRAPHIC EVIDENCE A video grab from a CCTV shows the killers of Dutch aid worker Wilhelmus Geertman fleeing the crime scene on a motorcycle in Barangay Sto. Domingo, Angeles City, on Tuesday. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Wilhelmus JJ Lutz Geertman was stunned. He raised his hands when he saw the two men with handguns.

They forced him to kneel and shot him in the back before snatching the bag of money he was holding.

The killers fled on a Honda motorcycle driven by a man in a raincoat. They were tailed by a red Mitsubishi car.

Colleagues of Geertman on Thursday cited witnesses’ accounts and video footage in pointing at telltale signs that the Dutch aid worker was “executed” for his political advocacy and in raising doubts to police claim of a case of robbery with homicide.

Geertman, 67, executive director of the nongovernmental group Alay Bayan-Luson Inc. (ABI), was killed on Tuesday in front of his office inside L&S Subdivision in Barangay (village) Sto. Domingo, Angeles City.

Witnesses’ accounts

“It happened so fast,” Vergel Garcia, an ABI staff member who witnessed the shooting, said in an interview. “They could have just taken the money, but they still shot him.”

Witnesses said Geertman arrived at the office on board a Nissan Frontier pick-up at past noon shortly after withdrawing some P1.2 million from a Metrobank branch in Angeles purportedly to finance farmers’ projects.

Another ABI staff member, Ranillo Margallo, said he had just opened the gate to let Geertman in when two men barged in. He said he overheard them cursing the victim.

CCTV footage

Margallo said he ran out after one of them pointed a gun at him. He said he heard a gunshot later.

Garcia and Margallo had already given their statements to the police.

A footage taken by the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera at the subdivision entrance showed the killers escaping on a motorcycle driven by another man wearing a raincoat and a red car tailing them.

The police have obtained photographs of the three through the footage, according to Superintendent Luisito Magnaye, City of San Fernando police chief.

There was no footage of the actual killing, but there were witnesses who saw the faces of the gunmen, Magnaye said.

He said the original video was blurred and could not show if any of the men on the motorcycle carried Geertman’s bag.

Joseph Canlas, chairman of the ABI board of trustees, said the killing was “politically motivated” as the victim was known for his advocacy for the rights of farmers and indigenous peoples, and the environment.

A month before the shooting, Canlas said Geertman and his staff had noticed several “suspicious-looking” men loitering and parking their vehicle outside their office, even peeking through its gate.

“We were surprised why he was the only one shot when there were many witnesses around. He was really the target of the perpetrators. This had the marks of political killings,” Canlas said in a briefing at the Quezon City office of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).

“They had cased his office. Obviously, his killing was carefully planned.”

PNP task force

Police authorities in Pampanga have formed a task force to identify and hunt down the killers, Senior Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr., spokesman of the Philippine National Police, said in a press briefing in Camp Crame yesterday.

Cerbo said investigators were initially studying robbery as the motive, although they would pursue other possible motives, such as Geertman’s involvement in political causes.

“We can’t discount any possibilities. It all depends on the evidence we gather and the eyewitnesses we find. Let us trust in the investigation that the PNP is doing,” he said.

ABI and two other militant groups, Karapatan and Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson, appealed “for the conduct of an independent investigation.”

Although the probe was still ongoing, “the police have concluded that this was robbery holdup. This is contrary to the initial results of a fact-finding investigation,” Roman Polintan, chairman of Bayan-Central Luzon, said in a joint briefing.

Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes said the police should not conclude that it was a case of robbery-homicide and immediately rule out the involvement of state forces.

The communist-led National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) blamed President Aquino for the latest “extrajudicial” killing.

“Not only has he failed to prosecute the killers and plunderers under the [Gloria Macapagal] Arroyo regime, he is continuing the same policy of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and other gross human rights violations,” said Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the NDFP’s peace panel.—With reports from DJ Yap and Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon