Military forces killed three farmers in Masbate and accused them of being members of the New People’s Army (NPA) involved in the killings of the Absalon cousins in Masbate, last June 8.
Families of the victims, however, oppose these claims and assert that Ailyn Bulalacao, Antonio Poligrates, and Ramon Brioso were abducted at around 1am and were later found dead 70 kilometers away from their place of residence.
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)-Bicol spokesperson Ma. Roja Banua denied that an encounter between NPA and Army soldiers happened during the wee hours of June 8 in Sitio Porang, Brgy. Anas, Masbate City.
Major General Henry Robinson from the 9th Infantry Division claims that the farmers were involved in the deaths of Keith Absalon, a football player from the Far Eastern University (FEU) and Nolven Absalon, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Masbate Electric Cooperative Employees Union.
The Absalons were slain after a command-detonated explosive (CDX) exploded and were also reportedly gunned down. The NDFP said that CDX are permissible under the Ottawa Treaty which regulates the use of landmines in armed conflict. However, they also stressed that the killing of civilian non-combatants in a civil war is never justified and should be condemned and rectified.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has taken full responsibility for the failures made in the NPA military operation that killed the Absalons. The CPP and the Romulo Jallores Command and Jose Rapsing Command of the NPA in Bicol and Masbate apologized for their errors and said that no justification would excuse the deaths of the Absalons.
CPP also maintained that an internal investigation will take place to hold the members at fault accountable. CPP Chief Information Officer Marco Valbuena released a statement, Additional Remarks on the Masbate tragedy, to clarify their points:(https://cpp.ph/statements/additional-remarks-on-the-masbate-tragedy/)
However, Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said that they will not trust in the words of the CPP-NPA and will take it upon themselves to hunt down NPA members in the province. Additional troops were then brought to Masbate to intensify the military’s efforts in the said NPA manhunt.
Masbate, with the rest of the Bicol region, is one of the provinces identified by the government to be strongholds of Communist rebels when the Duterte government imposed his counter-insurgency Memorandum Order No. 32 which heightened military and police operations and killings in the area.
In line with Gen. Parlade’s pronouncement of a manhunt and Interior Usec. Jonathan Malaya’s denial of NDFP-government agreements, the Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), Jose Maria Sison, in an interview with a Pinoy Weekly staff, dared the Philippine government to invade an NPA base to see what will happen.
Sison contested the government’s claims that the involved NPA rebels should be surrendered to their authorities. He said that the complaints against NPA units are under the jurisdiction of the NDFP just as complaints against the police and military are under the government’s jurisdiction.
He asserted that under the CARHRIHL and other peace talks agreements, the Philippine government and the NDFP are co-belligerents in a civil war and are not under the jurisdiction of each other’s governments, laws, and authority.
Sison also said that those who have complaints against the NPA could file cases in the NDFP-nominated panel of the Joint Monitoring Committee in Cubao, the Royal Norwegian Government, and the International Red Cross. State forces could also attack any NPA base ready to defend its territory because of the ongoing civil war and the absence of a ceasefire.
The deaths of the Absalons were heavily used by the anti-communist propaganda of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), where Gen. Parlade also serves as a spokesperson and is criticized for redtagging.
Stressing such opportunistic moves by Lt Gen. Parlade, chief of the Southern Luzon Command (SOLCOM), KARAPATAN Secretary-General Tinay Palabay said that the military’s account of the deaths of Bulalacao, Poligrates, and Brioso is a clear example of their consistent twisting of narratives and the truth to justify their attacks on the people.
Testimonies from the relatives of the farmers and eyewitness accounts revealed that the three farmers were abducted by the military during midnight and were implicated in a fake NPA encounter publicized by the military to the media. They denied that the three were NPA rebels.
Last June 15, soldiers from the 3rd Special Forces Battalion of the Philippine Army gunned down three Lumad peasants while they were harvesting abaca in Lianga, Surigao del Sur. Willy Rodriguez and 12-year old Angel Rivas, and Lenie Rivas were killed as the Army claimed that they are NPA members which their families, organizations, and tribespeople denied.
Lenie and Angel’s bodies were later discovered to have signs of rape and their genitalia were destroyed.
“Yung AFP, napakadaming kailangan saguting mga alegasyon na violation sa International Humanitarian Law… ‘di hamak na mas madugo at malala ang IHL violations ng AFP,” Palabay furthered.
Sison taunted that in terms of human rights violations, operations of the AFP and PNP have killed “much bigger, more widespread, and more frequent” citing incidents of murders of aging NDFP peace consultants, artillery fire and bombing of communities, and Oplan Tokhang.
