State forces kill health worker in Bacolod
State elements gunned down health worker Zara Alvarez, 39, at Eroreco Subdivision, Barangay Mandalagan, Bacolod City on August 17.
Alvarez was an active member of the Negros Island Integrated Health Program, an organization which provides free medical services and trainings in poor communities across the island. She was a well-known human rights advocate not only in Negros but also in the international community. She spent more than two decades of her life serving the peasants and farm workers in the island. She also became part of a progressive program of the Catholic church.
The killing was also condemned by the Office of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Amnesty International and Samiduon.
Earlier, the regime failed in its attempt to declare Alvarez along with other activists as terrorists. However, state forces continued to maliciously link her to the armed movement. From 2012 to 2014, she became a political detainee under the Aquino III regime after being slapped with trumped up charges of murder and robbery. Alvarez is the 13th human rights defender killed under the Duterte regime.