Top officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are surely pressuring 79th Infantry Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Jay-J Javinez after the New People’s Army (NPA) “successfully implemented standing orders” in Calatrava despite being classified as dismantled by the Philippine Army, Roselyn Jean Pelle Command – NPA Northern Negros (RJPC-NPA) spokesperson said Wednesday.

Ka Cecil Estrella said Javinez recently showed his desperation to act immediately on the NPA’s recent police actions, which pushed him to employ the whole-of-nation approach and direct the people’s war towards legal warfare.

“Javinez is desperate enough that he himself roams around Calatrava conducting pulong-pulong disreputably showing supposed NPA cadres and promoting bounty hunting,” Estrella said in a statement.

She further cautioned the public to be wary of the tactic of withholding names of suspects in legal cases filed by the AFP and the Police Regional Office-6 as this can be used “in perpetrating human rights violations worsening the already grave human rights situation in Northern Negros.”

Estrella noted that farmers or former NPA members can be pressured to cooperate and become tools of AFP mercenaries by threatening to include them in the list of unnamed suspects.

Javinez and PLt. Judesses Catalogo, provincial police spokesman, earlier declared in separate statements that charges were filed against seven individuals suspected to be involved in the killing of Barangay Lalong Chief Benjamin Javoc and that suspect’s names were withheld “to protect witnesses from possible retaliation of the NPA.”

Estrella clarified that the punishments against Javoc, Rodel Nobleza, and Renato Estrebillo underwent due process in the revolutionary people’s court.

She also reiterated the statement of NPA Regional spokesperson Ka Juanito Magbanua warning the military and police not to harm the masses in their “costly, relentless and voluminous” combat operations.