State agents brutally attacked two Tumandok defenders in the past week.

Julie Catamin, captain of Barangay Roosevelt in Tapaz, Capiz, was gunned down by policemen on February 28 in Malitbog in the same town. Catamin earlier exposed that firearms and explosives were planted by the police in the houses of her constituents who were arrested in December 2020. The arrests took place in conjuction with the massacre of nine farmers known as the Tumandok 9.

On March 3, two unidentified male assailants stabbed Atty. Angelo Karlo Guillen in the head and back in Gen. Luna St., Iloilo City. Guillen serves as lawyer of the Tumandoks and farmers who were arrested in Capiz and Iloilo in December 2020. He is also one the lawyers of groups who petitioned against the Anti-Terror Law (ATL). He is the secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers-Panay.