Historical timeline and milestones

• Education:
  • Entered UP on a scholarship to study Marine Biology
  • Shifted to Civil Engineering when he enrolled at Notre Dame of Marble College in South Cotabato
• Associations:
  • Pi Sigma Fraternity
  • Coordinator, Integrated Youth Development Program (IYDP) in Mindanao
  • Mindanao coordinator, People’s Ecumenical Action for Community Enlightenment (PEACE) Foundation
  • Consultant and Adviser, Consortium for Rural Services and Programs (CRSP) of Mindanao, a service institution for farmers

As remembered by family and friends

“Edwin joined the UP Diliman chapter as a member of (Pi Sigma) batch 79-A. In the 80s, he returned to Mindanao and became very active in the mass movement, working mainly with peasant groups. Edwin was with PEACE, a peasant advocacy group, when he was summarily executed sometime in November 1987 in Davao City.” — From Of Rites & Rights: The Pi Sigma Story 1972-2007

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“Nagkasama kami ni Edwin noong 1982 sa student movement sa Mindanao. Taong 1984, nagdesisyon na kaming magpakasal kahit sa gitna ng matinding panganib na kasama ng  patuloy na pakikibaka para sa demokrasya. Patuloy pa rin ang gawain kahit mahirap ang kalagayan. May pangamba kahit na handa kami sa kahit anong mangyayari. Umaasa pa rin kami na mabuhay nang mahaba. Isang araw nangyari ang matinding pinangangambahan! Di na si Ka Edwin bumalik sa aming bahay. Nabalitaan namin na siya ay dinakip at tuluyang pinatay.” — Dong Laguerder, asawa ni Edwin

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“1987 began ominously with the Mendiola Massacre in Manila on January 22. The massacre, which claimed the lives of 18 farmers, eventually resulted in the collapse of the already precarious Ceasefire Agreement between the clandestine National Democratic Front and the Philippine Government which was to expire February 7.

The year saw the Lupao massacre; the assassinations of local government secretary Jaime Ferrer, a known anti-communist, and Leandro Alejandro, the articulate and uncompromising secretary-general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN); the incessant attacks against the progressive segment of the church; the rise and frenzied expansion of the vigilantes; the revival of religious fundamentalism embodied (in fanatical groups; the power-grabbing attempts of disgruntled elements in the fractious military led by Col. Gregorio “Gringo Honasan, Senator Juan Ponce Enrile’s former aide; and the intensifying guerilla actions in the countryside and in urban centers, matched with selective military bombings and harassment.

It was a year of institutionalized violence challenged by the armed struggle of those seeking change, a year no different from the past and the present and which certainly shapes the future. Caught in the web of this violence was Edwin Laguerder, 26, youth activist, peasant advocate, nationalist, and father of two preschoolers. 

On November 26, 1987, Edwin headed home from Agusan Norte province where he had just attended a Mindanao-wide farmers’ consultation. He did not make it home that day. And no one thought to check on him for he was expected only on the 28th.

But on the same day Edwin left Agusan Norte, at around 4 p.m., the Consortium for Rural Services and Programs (CRSP), of which Edwin was a consultant, received an anonymous call. The informant saw he witnessed a man being arrested and interrogated in Sasa. The man shouted CRSP’s telephone number, the caller said, but he could not identify the man.

On November 29, a farmer leader from Butuan City (Agusan Norte) informed CRSP that Edwin had departed from Butuan on the 26th. They then feared that the man who had been arrested in Sasa, 12 kilometers east of Davao City, was Edwin. But it was not until the 30th that Edwin was declared missing. Edwin was to lead a delegation of People’s Ecumenical Action for Community Enlightenment (PEACE) in Manila. Edwin was Mindanao’s PEACE coordinator.

The search began. Advertisements were placed in local daily newspapers and flyers were distributed in Sasa, appealing for information on the abduction. Relatives and friends organized Task Force Edwin Laguerder and conducted ocular visits at the abduction site.

During the second ocular visit, the Task Force confronted the police chief in Sasa who vaguely acknowledged having noticed a “commotion” on the 26th near the police station but denied any hand in Edwin’s disappearance. A segment of the group interviewed residents. Many volunteered to give information on the condition of anonymity.

Fragments of information pieced together yielded the conclusion that Edwin was the man held by the police. According to witnesses, Edwin disembarked at the diversion road in Panacan and took a jeepney for downtown. As the vehicle was approaching the Sasa police station, a plainclothesman ordered the driver to stop and called out to policemen at the station. With the help of the policemen, the man forced Edwin out of the jeepney.

The witnesses also said the jeepney driver was told to bring the jeep to the police compound. Once inside, Edwin was hauled out of the jeepney and brought to the office. In full view of curious onlookers, Edwin was interrogated.

Edwin insisted on making a phone call to his lawyer but was refused. Desperate, Edwin called out several telephone numbers, one of these was CRSP’s. Apparently, one of the onlookers called CRSP that day.

After about 10 minutes of grilling, a vehicle loaded with four military men in uniform arrived and took Edwin. The military car, the witnesses said, sped off in the direction of Panacan where the Regional Unified Command headquarters was located. That was the last time Edwin was seen alive.

The search ended on December 6. CRSP was informed a cadaver had been fished out near the Sasa international wharf. The body had been brought to a funeral home. It was Edwin.

Torture marks, gunshot and stab wounds were visible on Edwin’s lifeless body. The lean figure of Edwin ‘had been reduced to a decomposing body devoured by worms and was estimated to be two to three weeks old, an indication that Edwin had been executed the same day he was abducted or, at the latest, the following day, November 27.

On December 8, Edwin was sent to his resting place by some 1,000 placard-bearing sympathizers, the first to hit the streets of Davao City since the Alsa Masa (President Aquino’s paradigm of an unarmed people’s anti-communist organization) had declared Davao City its domain.” — Bert Cacayan, Edwin’s Last Homecoming

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A tribute to Edwin C. Laguerder
December 12, 1987
By Alliance of Nationalist Development Agencies in Mindanao (ANDAM)

“We shall bury another victim of military violence in the City of Davao today. We shall take the streets to express our outrage and vow justice for his death.

Edwin C. Laguerder, 26, was last seen alive by his family and friends on November 22, 1987. He left Davao for Cebu then to attend a national consultation of development workers. En route to his home from a speaking engagement in Butuan, he was picked up by military men near the Sasa police station, Davao City, on November 26 at around 3:00 p.m. Days of searching finally yielded on December 6 his decomposing corpse.

Recovered from the Sasa waterfront, Edwin’s remains were to fill in the gap in our imagination of how brutal the Aquino government’s new AFP can be. We found him without his right arm, kidney, liver, and lungs. His right ribs were partly showing. Wounded across the chest and still blindfolded, the rope in his left arm revealed that he was hogtied before he was killed.

It was sheer inhumanity that did Edwin in. His resolve to get over the circumstances and continue living by asserting his rights was known to many who had witnessed the abduction. We, who had worked with him, through the years, attest that Edwin had done absolutely nothing to merit anyone’s contempt. We find it ironical that a man of peace, of kindness, and of untold devotion to the cause of human development would himself fall victim to among the most barbaric crimes we have seen in recent years.

Who was Edwin?

Edwin served as coordinator of the Integrated Youth Development Program (IYDP) in Mindanao in 1983-1984. He became consultant of the Consortium of Rural Services and Programs (CRSP) in 1985. Then on, he would dedicate his time and talent in the service of the poor, especially the farmers. He initiated various studies, research, and socioeconomic projects to uplift the plight of those in the agricultural sector.

Reared in a family of broad socio-political exposure, Edwin’s unhampered record of leadership and involvement in mainstream development work betrays a firm vision and personal strength. Although generally withdrawn, among his close relatives, friends, and colleagues, he was known to have never hesitated in asserting and living by his conviction. He believed that the people’s grim condition was rooted in the prevalence of highly iniquitous socio-economic structures and relations.

From the youth and students sector, he moved on to serve the peasants because he wanted to give greater flesh to socio-economic and development initiatives from below. He tirelessly gave his share in strengthening farmers’ organizations in refining the concept, practical needs, and implementation of genuine agrarian reform programs in the region. He also became instrumental in the establishment of agricultural cooperatives, literacy and health programs for the rural poor while at the CRSP.

Acknowledged as among the keenest in the family, Edwin’s death was met by his 50-year old mother with equal courage as his brothers and sisters who have deeply admired him since. They seem to have known too well that life for Edwin himself can only be precious in terms of how one lives it. What pains the spirit most is brutality by which he was killed. “No one deserves to die that way,” says a sister, “more so, Edwin, who had always been a compassionate family man.”

Edwin left us with an equally strong and responsible wife, a two-and-a-half-year old daughter, and a seven-month old son, whom we cannot but love and cherish in memory of our lost friend and co-development worker.

Implications of his Death

As we accompany Edwin today to the stillness of his grave, we reflect upon the meaning of his tragic killing. He once told us, “We need not directly suffer military brutality to remind us that we are all victims of greater violence that resides in contemporary Philippine Society.” In search of genuine for his people — through basic social reform – he was killed with utmost ferocity. Are we to understand now that the present government intends to block any and all roads that lead to meaningful reform?

Edwin has fallen because this government has sanctioned – through its total war policy — wanton killings in the name of “counterinsurgency”.  His decomposing body was surfaced to warn us that we may not be here to stay if we mean to continually assist the masses in confronting the government on their basic needs and grievances. Not content with relegating the issue of genuine agrarian reform to the back burner, it has begun to strike at even mere peasant advocates.

We were ourselves hurt by the sight of Edwin’s sealed casket and on hearing the gory details of what lies inside the casket. But in no more fitting tribute to Edwin, we affirm that in unity with his family and friends and the rest of the struggling masses, we shall work to seek justice for his death, as well as those of other martyrs of the people. We shall continue to bring his spirit alive by working for the victory of his cause: the emancipation of the farmers from bondage to the soil as a basic means to ensuring the all-rounded development of his children and generations of Filipinos yet to come.

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