Pimentel scores government failure to resolve Hugo killing

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III today slammed the police for its abject failure to resolve the savage killing of student activist Cris Hugo nine years ago in Legazpi City during the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Pimentel asked the Philippine National Police why the alleged killers of Hugo and their conspirators whom reports said belonged to a rightist's group in the military have still remained at large.

He said that unless justice is done, killing political activists in the country would be like an albatross that will weigh down the positive achievements of the present administration.

He appealed to the police to intensify its drive to arrest the killers of activists, whom reports have identified as members of paramilitary or vigilante groups.

Hugo was only 20 years old when he was gunned down by his assassins reportedly sanctioned by certain elements in the government of the then administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

At the height of the extrajudicial killings launched nationwide against activists during Arroyo's term, several militants were killed in a two-year period of extrajudicial executions.

Pimentel added that he would maintain a database in his office of all unsolved killings and "move to make the crime of murder imprescriptible so that killers can be brought to justice anytime a killing is solved by the police."