NPA, NDF in Negros Island condemn Sagay massacre

“HEINOUS murderers, heinous liars.”

This is how the Apolinario Gatmaitan Command of the New People’s Army in Negros Island (AGC-NPA Negros Island) described top AFP and PNP officials who blamed the rebels for the Sagay massacre.

Nine farm workers manning a peasant camp-out at Hacienda Nene, Purok Firetree, Brgy. Bulanon, Sagay City, were shot dead by alleged mercenaries belonging to the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (RPA/SCAA) on the evening of Oct 20, 2018.

“The culprits are in fact under the command of the AFP’s SCAA unit stationed in Hacienda Mirasol, Brgy. Baterya, Sagay City, some 2 kilometers from the massacre site,” AGC-NPA spokesperson Juanito Magbanua said.

“The heinous lies being peddled by the PNP and the AFP serve not only to exonerate the landlords and their goons but also to further prop up the state’s current attempts to discredit the revolutionary movement and the people’s legitimate calls to end the rotten US-Duterte regime,” Magbanua added.

The NPA regional command in Negros Island depicted the killings of nine farm workers in Sagay City as “the single biggest and most brutal incident of peasant killings under the Duterte regime thus far.”

The victims were sugarcane workers, including women and minors, who were mercilessly strafed using M16 rifles. Some of the bodies were reportedly mutilated and burned afterwards.

Meanwhile, Ka Frank Fernandez of the National Democratic Front (NDF) Negros called the intensity of the peasant killings in Sagay City and the whole of Negros Island as “characteristic of the impunity of the Duterte regime and its killing machines in the AFP and the PNP.”

Fernandez said the massacre in Hacienda Nene is the latest in a series of peasant killings in Sagay City under the Duterte regime.

On Dec 21, 2017, Flora Jemola, 63, chairperson of the local chapter of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) in Sagay City, was stabbed to death. On Feb 22, 2018, farmer Ronald Manlanat was shot 18 times with an M16 rifle while working on a land at Hacienda Joefred, Sagay City.

Fernandez further said that the NDF and revolutionary forces in the island will not rest until justice is served for the victims of the Sagay Massacre and the peasants of Negros.

“The NDF calls on various sectors of society to side with the oppressed sugarcane workers of Negros, expose the truth and fight for justice. With the despotism of the Duterte regime, the Filipino people can only rest their hopes on their cherished army, the NPA, and the victory of the people’s war,” Fernandez said.

SOURCE: The Daily Guardian

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