Joma: Duterte gov’t behind Sagay massacre

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria Sison yesterday accused the Duterte administration and its security forces of engineering last Saturday’s massacre of nine sugar farmers in Sagay, Negros Occidental.

Sison said the culpability of President Duterte, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) is emphasized in their blaming the communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels for the massacre.

“By blaming the NPA, the real perpetrators are covered up and go scot free after murdering the poor farmers, including two minors. This is in line with the Duterte’s policy of killing poor people with impunity,” Sison said.

Sison said the public is aware of the accusations from the AFP and the PNP that the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), to which the nine slain workers belonged, is a front organization of the CPP-NPA.

Sison cited the latest report from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) where it said the Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA), a breakaway communist rebel group, is probably responsible for the massacre.

Sison disputed this, saying it contradicts the earlier claim by the government that the NPA is behind the killing.

Sison said the RPA is a paramilitary auxiliary group of the AFP and PNP. He added the group is a private gang of the governor and sugar landlords in the province of Negros Occidental.

Human Rights Watch said the victims were members of the NFSW who joined the first day of bungkalan, a “land occupation” protest on a part of the plantation.

“The police have suggested possible suspects behind the killings. They include plantation owners opposed to the land occupation and communist New People’s Army rebels trying to discredit the government,” the group said.

Carlos Conde of Human Rights Watch-Asia Division said agrarian reform violence is not uncommon in the Philippines, which is still grappling with the landlessness that has been blamed for massive poverty that, in turn, has fueled a half-century-long communist insurgency.

“In Negros, there have been countless political killings attributed to landowners and the New People’s Army, as well as government security forces. Among the most notorious incidents was the 1985 Escalante massacre, in which 20 peasants and activists were killed when police and military men opened fire on a protest march,” Conde said. – With Rhodina Villanueva, Jaime Laude