Today, April 23, 2023, the family and colleagues of slain National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Randall ‘Ka Randy’ Echanis marks his 75th birthday. They will also demand justice anew for Echanis’ brutal killing which case remained cold since 2020. “We have not heard from the DOJ Task Force ever since and up until today, the killers of Ka Randy remain scot-free,” according to Echanis’ widow Erlinda Lacaba-Echanis.
Ka Randy’s heinous death in August 2020 has cut short his efforts to pursue peace and genuine agrarian reform to resolve the decades-old armed conflict in the country. At the time of his death, he was a member of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER). In 2018, NDFP and GRP panels initialed the common drafts of the programs on agrarian reform, rural development, and national industrialization and economic development. The GRP Peace Panel then agreed in principle to free land distribution as the framework for agrarian reform policies.
“We will demand justice for Ka Randy and other peace consultants summarily killed by the state — including Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria-Tiamzon, who both faced gruesome and barbaric deaths in the hands of state mercenaries.”
Several NDFP peace consultants have been extrajudicially killed since 2019 while several others have gone missing.
