At around 09.00am on the morning of 6 July, Ande Latuan was travelling by motor bike with a female companion, Alang Kaligunan, to bring sacks of corn to the local market, when five members of the right wing Alamara paramilitary group, who have been identified by the eye witness, forced them to stop. Ande Latuan said that if they were going to kill him they should spare the woman. He had just finished speaking when he was shot dead.

The gunmen then told Alang that she shouldn’t report the incident or it would be her turn to die. At that point some other members of the Lumad community, who were also on their way to market by motor bike, arrived and the killers fled. Ande was rushed to hospital but was declared dead on arrival.

It was a week before Alang could bring herself to speak of the killing to a friend who reported it to the police. It turned out that there was already a case outstanding against the five named members of the paramilitary group in Malaybalay City.

Ande Latuan was at least 30 years of age, and a member of the Pigyayungaan indigenous tribal association which has been actively seeking justice for the victims of the Alamara, who were killed by the group because they were accused of supporting or conniving with the rebel group, the New People’s Army. Pigyayungaan has struggled for many years to protect the ancestral lands of indigenous communities against destructive investment projects that are often backed by the Alamara, who are in effect acting as security for these major investment projects.