Account of the incident:
According to reports of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) South Luzon Jurisdiction, on September 5, 2011 at around 1:30pm, Rabenio Sungit was shot dead by an unidentified motorcycle-riding man wearing a balaclava using a .45 caliber pistol in the public market along Pagayona Street, Municipality of Quezon, Palawan Province. Rabenio was with his wife, Trinidad Sungit and their 17 year old son, when the incident happened.
Account of the incident:
According to reports of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) South Luzon Jurisdiction, on September 5, 2011 at around 1:30pm, Rabenio Sungit was shot dead by an unidentified motorcycle-riding man wearing a balaclava using a .45 caliber pistol in the public market along Pagayona Street, Municipality of Quezon, Palawan Province. Rabenio was with his wife, Trinidad Sungit and their 17 year old son, when the incident happened.
Trinidad recounted that earlier of the same day, her family together with Rabenio and the children of Avenio “Abe” Sungit, (Rabenio’s brother) gathered at the UCCP local church in Quezon to receive the support from the UCCP national office for the children of Abe Sungit. After the said meeting, they went to the market to buy some goods for the family. Trinidad, who was not far from Rabenio heard two gunshots and, in an instant, saw her husband fall to the ground. Trinidad saw the gunman hurriedly leaving the scene on a motorcycle driven by another person. Her son said that he saw the perpetrators fled towards a northern direction.
Prior to the incident, Rabenio attended a Basic Human Rights Orientation Seminar in Puerto Princesa, Palawan organized by the UCCP South Luzon Jurisdiction.
Trinidad and Winio (Rabenio’s brother) said that when Rabenio was still alive, they were frequently visited by elements from the Philippine Marines. Likewise, the family also noticed that Rolbing, a nephew of Rabenio and chieftain of the Pelaw’an tribe, believed to be an informer of the military, was always inquiring about Rabenio’s whereabouts.
According to the family and members of the Pelaw’an tribal community, Rabenio was known to be a simple and gentle person. He did not engage in vices like drinking liquor and gambling, but instead focused his energies on working daily to make ends meet for his family. He was a kind, just and a respected figure- a leader of their community who stood up in defense of people’s rights. He championed the indigenous rights for ancestral lands against encroachments of large-scale mining companies and other environmentally-destructive projects.
Families and friends are further disturbed and angered by the incident as this is not the first to happen in the Sungit family and tribal community. Rabenio’s elder brother, Abe Sungit, one of the Pelaw’an leaders and Karapatan-Palawan member, a known staunch oppositionist of and organizer against destructive mining operations and human rights violations, was also a victim of extrajudicial killing. The brothers’ steadfast and active involvement in just social causes for their rights as indigenous peoples solicited ill-will from the military who tagged them as “leftists” or “communists”. Since 2003, Abe Sungit had been in the so-called “Order of Battle” list of the military after exposing human rights violations in the province. Abe was shot dead also by unidentified motorcycle-riding men in 2005.