Human rights groups Karapatan and Hustisya, an organization of families and friends of victims of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations, mark the fifth anniversary of the killing of peasant leader Randall “Ka Randy” Echanis with renewed calls for justice and accountability.
Ka Randy was stabbed 12 times by suspected state agents who broke into his home in Quezon City on August 10, 2020. His body also bore 28 puncture wounds, indicating that his assailants tortured him before killing him.
Echanis, who was 72 and sickly at the time of his death, chaired Anakpawis Partylist and was deputy secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas. He was also a consultant on socio-economic reforms during the peace talks between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) in 2016 to 2017. He was the third NDFP consultant to be killed during the Duterte regime, after Randy Malayao was shot dead in January 2019 while riding a bus on his way to his home province and Julius Giron was killed in police operations in Baguio City in March 2020 together with his two companions.
“It has been five years since Ka Randy’s brutal killing, yet no one has been held accountable for it,” decried Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay. “At least 442 activists, peace consultants, peasants and indigenous people had also been extrajudicially killed (EJK) under Rodrigo Duterte’s bloodthirsty regime, including Echanis’ fellow NDFP consultants Eugenia Magpantay and Agaton Topacio, who were shot dead in their house in Angono, Rizal on November 25, 2020.”
Magpantay and Topacio’s son, Atty. VJ Topacio, who also serves as Hustisya spokesperson, said, “Our thirst for justice has not been quenched these past five years. We continue to demand accountability, both from the Duterte regime under which these killings were perpetrated, and from the Marcos Jr. regime which we hold liable for turning a blind eye to all the killings under Duterte.” In fact, he continued, we can say that Marcos Jr. actually tolerates the EJKs under Duterte and is complicit in the killings under his own watch since he continues to implement Duterte’s repressive policies and directives that engendered these crimes.
As of June 30, 2025, Karapatan has documented 129 extrajudicial killings of activists under the Marcos Jr. regime.
Karapatan and Hustisya vowed to relentlessly call for justice for Ka Randy and for all other victims of extrajudicial killing.