Murder in Broad Daylight

So commonplace is violence in the southern Mindanao seaport of Zamboanga City that Mayor Cesar Climaco, 68, tallied the killings on a billboard outside the municipal hall. The mayor, a leading critic of the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos, last week became such a statistic himself as he was shot in broad daylight in the center of town. The assassin escaped. Inevitably, some Filipinos blamed the killing on the Marcos regime. During the past two months three opposition figures in the south have been murdered, and many suspect that Mayor Climaco right-wing military elements were involved.

Climaco had been a constant critic of the government's human rights abuses. When the President proclaimed martial law in 1972, he vowed not to cut his hair until "peace and democracy are restored," and his long white locks became his trademark. Marcos condemned the murder and ordered an investigation by the acting armed forces Chief of Staff Lieut. General Fidel Ramos. That did not appease the opposition. Said former Senator Salvador Laurel: "One by one our leaders are being killed or eliminated."