DAVAO CITY – Chad Booc, a graduate of the University of the Philippines, a Bakwit, and three other suspected members of the New Peoples Army (NPA) were killed in an encounter with the military troops in Purok 8, Barangay Andap, New Bataan, Davao de Oro on Thursday, February 24.
Booc graduated as Cum Laude in Bachelor of Science in Computer in UP Diliman he served as a human rights activist. He served as a volunteer teacher for the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) Lumad school.
Capt. Mark Anthony S. Tito, chief of the Division Public Affairs Office of the 10th Infantry Division, identified the slain NPA member as Jojarain Alce Nguho II alias Rain, Chad Booc alias Chad, a certain alias Daday, while the two others were still unidentified.
But the Save Our Schools Network which is based in Cebu in a press statement vehemently denied there was an encounter but claims the victims were massacred, “The Save Our Schools Network vehemently condemns the bloody massacre that had transpired.”
It can be recalled that on February 15, 2021, Booc along with six others known as the “Bakwits, ”were arrested by police authorities on allegations of kidnapping with serious illegal detention and trafficking in persons for allegedly taking Lumad minors from Talaingod, Davao del Norte to a Bakwit school in the Talamban Campus of San Carlos University Talamban Campus in Cebu City.
But the court dismissed the charges and ordered the release of Bakwit 7 from police detention.-Editha Z. Caduaya
