Bacolod City – The Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade reported recently that seven innocent civilians had been killed by the New People’s Army in the past two months in Negros Island.
From December last year to February this year, the 303IB recorded six incidents of summary execution of seven civilians, perpetrated and even claimed by the NPA, as well as the use of homemade landmines, which it said a clear violation of the International Humanitarian Law.
These killings are deliberately undertaken by the NPA terrorist group to intimidate civilians, said 303IB commander Brig. Gen. Inocencio Pasaporte.
“It is also their way of coercing their members of not abandoning their ranks,” Pasaporte added.
Among the victims of NPA summary executions were Mariel Encarquez and Ponciano Carbajosa who both died in Brgy. Bandila, Toboso on Dec. 13 and 14 respectively last year; Jimmy dela Cruz on Feb. 4 in Brgy. Cambayobo, Calatrava, all in Negros Occidental; former barangay Kagawad Lucio Perater and his son, Fernardo, on Feb. 16 in Brgy. Malangsa, Vallehermoso, Negros Oriental and Haidato Boca in Brgy. Santol, Binalbagan.
The New People’s Army Mt. Cansermon Command also claimed responsibility for the killing of Bertito Roso who they accused as a military asset of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on February 13 in Sitio Nursery, Brgy. Bi-ao, Binalbagan, Negros Occidental.
The killing of Roso also led to the ambush of a team of policemen who responded to incident in the barangay. Two policemen, including the deputy police chief of Binalbagan, were injured in the ambush.
Pasaporte said that the NPA tagged their victims as military informants and fabricated lies to project that their actions are justified, and to cover up the clear violation of human rights and IHL they had committed.
We have seen this tagging of civilians as government agents or informants ever since, and it is high time that they will be held accountable for this cowardly act, Pasaporte said. (Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star (TVDS), photo courtesy of TVDS)