Romeo "Romy" Sanchez, aged 39 years, married with five children, was attacked and killed at around 5:00 in the afternoon on 9 March 2005 in the centre of Baguio City, Luzon. He had been walking down one of the city’s main streets with two companions and stopped at the public market to look at second-hand clothes when he was shot in the head at close range. His companions, on hearing a bang, looked round to see Romy Sanchez slumped on the ground. They stayed at the scene in a state of shock until the police arrived.
Romy Sanchez, Ilocos regional coordinator of Bayan Muna and regional secretary-general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN – New Patriotic Alliance), was a well-known local radio presenter and commentator and a community activist working on behalf on peasant and fisher folk in the Ilocos region. In 2000 he had been detained in Rizal province and reportedly subjected to torture by military intelligence officers who accused of involvement in the killing of a former senior CPP-NPA leader Conrado Balweg in 1999.(140)
Reports collated by the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance describe how two police officers, who were on foot patrol, arrived at the crime scene after only five minutes. A subsequent police scene-of-crime operation was able to recover one fired cartridge for a .380 calibre firearm on the floor on a nearby pawnshop. An autopsy report stated that the victim was shot with a .380 calibre handgun at close range below his left ear.
Romy Sanchez’ wife described her husband had received threatening text messages prior to his death including one warning that he should "prepare to be the next to die". He reportedly told colleagues that he had be under military surveillance on numerous occasions since his detention in 2000 and that soldiers had threatened to harm him if he did not stop his leftist activities.

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