The Philippine Air Force’s (PAF) two FA-50 fighter jets dropped no less than eight powerful bombs in Sityo Mainaga, Barangay Iba, Cabanglasan, Bukidnon on March 4, at 12:30 am. This was confirmed by residents in the area and by the unit of the New People’s Army-North Central Mindanao Region (NPA-NCMR) who witnessed the event.

Contrary to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) report of having targeted an NPA unit, the bombing in the mountains was actually indiscriminate, according to the NPA-NCMR. The Red fighters operating in the area were safe and unharmed, it said.

Instead, the bombing caused extreme trauma and terror to the farming and Lumad communities who were asleep at that time. The destruction it caused to the forests, which are the source of livelihood and necessities of the residents, primarily the Lumad, cannot be denied.

The two FA-50s that bombed the area belonged to three FA-50s from Cebu that the AFP sent to sow aerial terror. One of the fighter jets was reported to have gone missing and crashed that morning. The completely wrecked jet fighter was later found in Mt. Kalatungan Complex along with its two pilots’ remains.

This is the first time that the aging South Korean FA-50 jet fighters purchased by the Philippine government from 2015 to 2017 have been involved in an accident. The incident prompted the PAF to suspend the use of FA-50 jet fighters in its bombing operations on communities while conducting an investigation into its crash.

According to the national-democratic group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), the investigation should not be confined to the cause of the crash. The group said the PAF and the Marcos regime should explain why FA-50 jet fighters are being used for bombing in rural areas and examine its effect on civilian communities.

“The crash underscored our assertion that the government’s principal and unchanged strategy in resolving the armed conflict is to militarize and terrorize communities, and its so-called whole-of-nation approach obscures the use of deadly airstrikes,” Bayan stated.

The group calls for the immediate cessation of the AFP’s ongoing combat operations in the area of the incident to give way to the investigation and gather true statements and conditions of the residents. There should also be an assessment of the impact of the airstrike on the environment and mountains.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of the Philippines emphasized in a statement that indiscriminate bombing violates the rules under international humanitarian law which stipulate that the force of weapons should be proportional to the target and only what is necessary. The use of bombs and other similar weapons of war is excessive and a disproportionate use of force.

“The bombing operations highlight how the so-called AFP modernization, purportedly to face an external threat, continues to be directed against the NPA and the people,” CPP information officer Marco Valbuena. He added that this is despite repeated pompous declarations of the AFP that they have already crushed the NPA.

Valbuena further emphasized, “this is the face of US military funding that goes to the purchase of bombs, missiles and rockets used against the Filipino people.” Despite the AFP’s praises for its deceased pilots, the truth cannot be hidden that they are butchers and perpetrators of terrorism in peaceful communities, Valbuena said.

Valbuena called on various democratic sectors in the country to unite and demand an immediate stop to the use of aerial bombing, other grave human rights violations and terrorism by the US-Marcos regime in rural communities.