The 502nd IBde soldiers rained bullets on five national minority Ifugao while they were fishing in Sitio Sapiot, Tappa, San Mariano, Isabela on April 21. The soldiers then fabricated a scenario where an armed encounter took place between them and the New People’s Army (NPA)-Cagayan Valley (Fortunato Camus Command).

In the April 23 report, three of the civilians safely returned home while two remain missing, as their families continue to search for them. All five are residents of Barangay Libertad, San Mariano.

The families and relatives of the victims themselves refuted the 5th ID commander MGen Guillever Senires’ statement that the five were Red fighters. The NPA-Cagayan also released a statement that no encounter took place in Barangay Tappa.

Condemnation poured in against the military for spreading fake news, as well as against media stations that are complicit in peddling disinformation. “San Mariano is peaceful. Then some irresponsible people just make fake news? Someone must be made accountable,” commented one poster.

The incident follows another 5th ID report of a fake encounter that allegedly happened in Barangay Dicamay Dos, Jones Isabela on April 20. Soldiers arrested two campaigning activists after the fabricated encounter.

Soldiers now encamped in houses in Barangay Dicamay Dos are sowing terror among residents to force them to change their statements regarding the fake encounter. Meanwhile, the repeated flights of four attack helicopters which dropped counter-revolutionary propaganda in Jones and neighboring towns caused extreme anxiety.

According to the NPA-Cagayan Valley, the 86th IB and 5th ID have done such modus operandi before where they stage fabricated battles to shroud rural communities in terror and horror.

Meanwhile, the unit’s political officer Ka Elias Almazan called on the people of the region to broadly expose the 5th ID’s widespread human rights violations and intensifying militarization throughout Cagayan Valley during Balikatan and the use by AFP troops of the prepositioning of US military equipment in the region.