A unit of the Armando Sumayang, Jr. Command (ASJC) of the New People’s Army (NPA) Southwest Negros Guerrilla Front, harassed an Army Patrol Base in Sitio Bugtong Kahoy, Barangay Asia, Hinobaan, Negros Occidental last November 27, 2018, 8 o’clock in the morning.
A press statement from Ka Andrea Guerrero, Armando Sumayang, Jr. Command Spokesperson,
NPA-Southwest Negros Guerrilla Front, said an Army soldier, Jayr Calunan, was killed while Staff Sergeant Ricky Ignacio, detachment commander from the 12th Infantry Battalion, was wounded in action.
This is in response to the people’s vehement demand for the end of militarization in the countryside and an answer to the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) “all out war” declaration in Negros, the Guerrero statement to media said.
According to reports gathered by the ASJC from the organized masses in Southern Negros, the 15th IB troops occupied schools, barangay halls and public markets and transformed houses of locals into their detachment. Residents were made to wear army uniforms and were forced to guide combat operations.
The 15th IB also released a list of residents and called on them to go to the army detachments and surrender. They threaten people with their firearms and take pictures of people they suspect as members or supporters of the NPA. A curfew was imposed in areas curtailing the movement of civilians in the localities. They were forced to leave their houses near their farms and form a hamlet instead. They were not allowed to got to their farms. Soldiers damaged crops, farm products and farm animals.
In the most recent incident, three persons wearing bonnets, believed to be military elements, forcibly entered houses especially of peasant leaders in the hinterlands of Sipalay City.
These measures do not only sow terror, violate human rights and deprive residents in southern Negros of their civil liberties. The economic life of the people is suffering gravely as well. Apart from the intensifying militarization in the countryside, there is also extra judicial killings and harassments in the legal mass movement.
The ASJC calls on the people in Southern Negros to courageously fight against the growing fascism in their areas. Expose and oppose the violations and abuses of the Peace and Development Teams of the military and their paramilitary groups and the lies and deception propagated by the 303rd Brigade. Support and join the NPA to strengthen the people’s revolution and throw out the AFP from the countryside.
The ASJC together with the rest of the NPA units in Negros Island is one with the people in confronting Duterte’s Memorandum Order 32, the looming declaration of nationwide martial law and the fascist dictatorship of the US-Duterte regime, the Guerrero statement added.*
(NDB)