The Rachelle Mae Palang Command (RMPC-NPA), the Southeast Negros Guerrilla Front of the New People’s Army, called the memorandum of agreement (MOA) signing between Negros Oriental local government officials and the military and police to expand efforts in their counterrevolutionary drive a ‘redundant PR attempt by the National Task Force (NTF)-Elcac.’

Through its spokesperson Ka Estrella Banagbanag, the RMPC-NPA said that “if anything, this MOA will only strengthen state terrorism of the Marcos Jr regime.”

“Since Oplan Sauron 1 and 2, the people of Negros Oriental can no longer be fooled into thinking that agreements such as these benefit them. The MOA signing only proves further how strong the military hold is on the supposedly civilian government to sustain its paranoid witch-hunt against revolutionaries that have victimized even the innocent and unarmed,” Banagbanag added.

The rebel spokesperson noted that the LGUs are ‘held in a hostage situation by the military, because with the AFP’s delusional trend, not cooperating with the military means being against them—a stupid argument exposing democracy in the country as democracy only for the elite and death for the oppressed.’

“LGUs will only reveal themselves complicit to the ongoing brutality on the island. We challenge local officials in the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) headed by Gov. Sagarbarria to assert the civilian authority of the LGUs, and to truly address the roots of the armed conflict by demanding justice for the countless crimes of the fascist state and pushing for genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization,” Banagbanag said.

“Any peace and order effort is inutile if the majority of the people in Negros Oriental remain oppressed and exploited, suffering hunger and poverty while also being subjected to the gratuitous violence of the current Marcos regime and its murder weapons such as the AFP, PNP, and other force multipliers,” Banagbanag ended.###