Press Statement

10 February 2001

LAGMAN CASE MUST BE THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED

By Jose Maria Sison

NDFP Chief Political Consultant

Filemon "Popoy" Lagman led a complicated and controversial life and collected too many enemies, especially in the last 14 years.

A thoroughgoing investigation of the killing of Lagman must be conducted and solid evidence must be presented before anyone can make a valid and credible conclusion.

Those who rush to accuse the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army are either simply irresponsible, malicious or covering up their culpability.

Investigators should look into the following as possibly responsible for the killing:

1. US-lining psy-war experts who would gain a pretext for killing legal progressive leaders and destroying the legal mass movement,
2. Military groups that wish to carry out destabilization for their own narrow purposes, as in the murder of KMU chairman Rolando Olalia and Bayan secretary general Lean Alejandro, in 1986 and 1987,
3. Police officers who follow the tradition of killing suspected cop killers and who wish to avenge the killing of hundreds of policemen in Metro Manila in 1987,
4. The RPA-ABB which remains spiteful of Lagman as a consequence of the bitter dispute with him over payoffs from the Amari deal in 1997, and
5. Relatives of company executives killed by ABB, when Lagman and Nilo de la Cruz were still in good terms.