State forces to arrest, shoot groups occupying idle lands

State forces will arrest groups occupying land and idle housing units if they continue to do so, President Rodrigo Duterte warned.

“I will tell the Left, the communists, ‘Do not do it ever again because I have issued an order to the police and to the Armed Forces. If you continue to occupy a property just what happened in Bacolod, I said, this time I will order your arrest,” Duterte said.

He was apparently referring to an incident in Sagay City in Negros Occidental, where nine sugar workers were killed during a "bungkalan" or land cultivation in a hacienda there on October 20. The chief executive even threatened that the groups will be shot if they resist violently.

“My orders to the police and the soldiers, shoot them. If they resist violently, shoot them. If they die, I do not care,” he said.

Duterte called on groups to stop “confiscation of other people’s or somebody else’s property,” claiming

the act is “sowing anarchy.”

SAGAY KILLINGS

The victims, who included four women and two minors, were resting in makeshift tents at Hacienda Nene in Purok Firetree, Barangay Bulanno when unknown armed men opened fire.

Multiple murder charges were filed against Rene Manlangit and Rogelio Arquillo, members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, last Friday.

Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao, Western Visayas police director, accused the two of conspiring with an armed group in planning the attack. He also claimed the victims were manipulated by communist insurgents into occupying a private property as part of its Oplan Bungkalan and Okupasyon.

NFSW secretary general John Milton Lozando decried the filing of charges, calling it a dangerous precedent against mass-based groups.