On Aug. 23, 2020, Bae Merlin Ansabu Celis, a lumad Manobo leader, was brutally murdered in Magpet, Cotabato. 'Four unknown men shot her, slashed her throat, and removed her eyes with a machete,' per one report. Celis was an advocate for indigenous rights and an opponent of illegal logging and other exploitative activities. On Sept. 26, 2020, patrolmen Jessie Golondrina and Edwin Fernando Velarde were killed in a gunfight while trying to apprehend timber poachers in Northern Samar and secure the poachers' Masbate-bound pump boat with 11,000 board feet of undocumented lauan.

https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/400653/defending-our-environmental-defenders

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