18 April 2006. NEW YORK—The United Nations will formally honor next month a Filipino peacekeeper who was killed in the line of duty while serving in the UN mission in Haiti a year ago, the Philippine Mission to the United Nations announced today.

Ambassador Lauro L. Baja Jr., Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said the UN will present the Dag Hammarskjold Medal on  Staff Sergeant Antonio M. Batomalaque when the world body commemorates the International Day of UN Peacekeepers on 29 May 2006.

Ambassador Baja added that Army Staff Sgt. Batomalaque will receive the Dag Hammarskjold Medal along with several other military troops, civilian police, military observers and civilians from other UN member-states who died in 2005 while serving in UN peace operations worldwide.

Sergeant Batomalaque became the first Filipino peacekeeper to die in combat after he was fatally shot by Haitian gunmen during a firefight in the violent slum neighborhood of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince on 14 April last year. He was killed while providing covering fire for a ranking official shortly after gunmen attacked the group of UN peacekeepers they were with.

"The Philippine Mission will be honored to receive the Dag Hammarskjold Medal on behalf of the family of Sergeant Batomalaque," Ambassador Baja said. "Sergeant Batomalaque died gallantly in the line of duty and in so doing brought pride and honor to the Philippines and to the Filipino people."

A member of the Philippine Army's First Scout Ranger Regiment, Sergeant Batomalaque was deployed to Haiti in January 2005 as a part of the 135-member Philippine contingent serving as the Force Headquarters Support Unit for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

The Philippines is presently the largest troop contributor to UN peacekeeping operations from Southeast Asia with more than 500 troops, military observers and civilian police officers deployed in Afghanistan, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Sudan and Timor Leste.  END