A spate of political killings in the Philippines has cast a shadow over an otherwise optimistic start to the presidency of President Benigno Aquino III.
Six activists have been murdered since Aquino's inauguration on June 30, raising suspicions that the killings are aimed at testing his administration's response to attacks against left-wing organisations.
"This is a fair conclusion and not just from the government but other parties," said Teresita Deles, Aquino's adviser on the peace process to end insurgencies by Communist and Muslim rebels.
A large number of activists, from members of left-wing political parties to those from peasant organisations, were assassinated during the previous administration. Many of the victims were killed in broad daylight by masked shooters on motorbikes.
Leftists blame the killings on a dirty war being run by the military targeting organisations suspected of providing support to the Communist rebels.
In one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies, guerillas of the New People's Army have been operating in the country's hinterlands, attacking military and business targets since the late 1960s.
A presidential commission concluded in 2007 that enough evidence pointed to "elements and personalities" in the military allowing and even encouraging the killings of left-wing activists. But it found no evidence the attacks were sanctioned by the high command.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, a former chair of the country's Commission on Human Rights, told reporters this week that military men may be behind the latest attacks.
"How do you explain these killings? Coincidence? Look at their MO (modus operandi) - motorcycle-riding men in tandem in ski masks. It's all too familiar."
Victims included three members of the left-wing Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT). One of them, Josephine Estacio, 46, was shot in front of students and teachers during the morning assembly at her school in Bataan province on July 12.
Representatives from ACT were among a number of activist groups who recently met Aquino and members of the security forces to discuss the killings.
According to Karapatan, a leftist group monitoring the killings, 1,206 activists were murdered during the nine-year presidency of Gloria Arroyo. The authorities put the toll in the low hundreds.
Seven activists were killed in the first four months of this year. Seventeen others have been killed since May.
"The human rights violations under the previous administration constitute a major issue," said Deles. "There is a major commitment by the Aquino government... to end extrajudicial killings."
But activists say the new administration needs to get that message across.
"President Aquino should have issued a categorical statement for the killings to stop in his inaugural speech," said Karapatan chairman Marie Hilao-Enriquez.
The Justice Department is studying whether to set up a new agency to investigate the killings of activists and journalists. Under the new agency, prosecutors and the police work side by side to build strong cases.
Calling on Aquino to show his resolve to stop the killings, The Philippine Star said in an editorial: "As in the attacks on left-wing activists, the failure to solve the killings of journalists has bred a climate of impunity."
The 50-year-old President has himself been touched by the same grief as the families of victims of extrajudicial killings: His father was believed to have been killed by groups close to then President Ferdinand Marcos at Manila's airport in 1983.
