“2 FIL-AMS, 2ND UP STUDENT AMONG SLAIN ‘NEGROS 19” – Inquirer Headline. “The Commission on Human rights is looking into the April 19 encounters at Negros Island as more fatalities were identified as civilians—University of the Philippines (UP) student Maureen Keil Santuyo and Filipino Americans Kai Sorem and Lyle Prijoles.” “The Philippine Army has maintained that all 19 individuals killed in the series of encounters with members of the 79th Infantry Battalion were NPA combatants, including ranking rebel figures in northern Negros.”
US-based activist groups, Anakbayan-USA and Bayan-USA claimed Fil-Ams Sorem and Prijoles were immersing themselves in marginalized farmingcommunities, essentially to learn from them about their life-struggles and provide help in some way.
The University of the Philippines Open University (OPOU) said that “Ms. Santuyo was known among her peers as a compassionate youth advocate who committed to supporting and working with marginalized agrarian communities.” “Also killed in the April 19 clashes were Alyssa Alano, a peasant organizer and councilor of the UP Diliman University Student council, and RJ Nichole Ledesma, a cultural worker, journalist and regional coordinator for Altermidya on Negros Island.” Errol Wendel, a community researcher, was identified also as a fatality by the peasant groups Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and Tanggol Magsasaka.
‘More often than not, mainstream newspapers do not or are unable to report such news about military encounters where youth and farmers are often the victims, and the AFP somehow makes a report outright that the victims or those captured alive were NPA combatants.’
ALA-MASSACRE?
Nineteen individuals, including two minors, were killed in a so-called encounter in a marginalized peasant community, resulting in more than 100 families being displaced. It looks like a massacre.
Why did the Philippine Army’s 79th Infantry Battalion go into a marginalized farming community and consider most or all those they saw as NPA combatants? Did they see young people carrying arms and posing to shoot at the PA soldiers?
The soldiers apparently were following the ICC jailbird Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s bloody style in his “War on Drugs, Operation Tokhang, Double Barrel,” except that these happen in far-flung areas in the provinces. Is this the SOP designed by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), and a direct order from the AFP Commander-in-Chief President Bongbong Marcos, in cases of armed encounters in marginalized communities in the provinces?
Or is it possible that President Bongbong Marcos is aware of his dictator-father in the past (and he wants to replicate or surpass the deed) that there was the Palimbang Massacre, where that Mindanao barangay had to suffer more than 80 of its residents killed by AFP troops.
MONITORING GROUP
Interestingly, a major mainstream newspaper, the Inquirer, found the April 19 encounter in Negros Islandan important news worth printing as the headline that the Filipino people have to know. More often than not, mainstream newspapers do not or are unable to report such news about military encounters where youth and farmers are often the victims, and the AFP somehow makes a report outright that the victims or those captured alive were NPA combatants.
The Filipino people are fortunate only to a certain, though limited, extent that the long-time Human Rights Violations Watchdog KARAPATAN has managed to monitor, and report such important news, for the information of the general public.
Hopefully, the rest of the other mainstream newspapers will henceforth be more alert and report such encounters, so that not only the military version (often hard to believe) will be aired objectively, and the Commission on Human Rights will offhand do an official investigation, so that the perpetrators of such encounters will be held accountable, as justice demands.
The Commission on Human Rights will beinvestigating this encounter. The Kabataan Partylist and the UP Community have also called for animpartial investigation on this encounter by other appropriate investigating bodies.
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This is horrible, to say the least! More major publications have to headline these occurrences. Of course, they have to have reporters write on them. Are some of them (publications) aware of the truth but are afraid or intimidated by the military or pseudo-military forces, or by the current administration? My heart goes out to these present-day heroes, and to their grief-stricken families. Why use the term Drug Wars when these heroes were there to be made aware of the conditions of farm workers, and help alleviate the conditions?