Read in: Pilipino

The US-Duterte regime did not create the Barangay Development Program (BDP) to benefit the people. Its sole objective is to deceive the people from reality – that militarization imperils the lives and livelihood of barrio people, that the regime and the NTF-ELCAC’s alleged development programs are good for nothing, and that the fascist regime’s counterinsurgency campaign is making no progress. The regime will only add each cent from the P20 million budget per barangay to the pockets of the military, contractor and politicians and to fund its fascist objectives.

BDP will put the lives of children and youth, farmers and women in peril. In accordance with EO 70, the AFP and PNP will certainly lead the implementation of the program. In between the implementation of pretentious projects, the mercenary army will take advantage of the situation to abduct, murder, and coerce and present suspected members and supporters of the revolutionary movement as NPA fighters.

There have already been 46 documented victims of extrajudicial killings in the entire region from January 2020 to present. Most of the incidents were recorded in areas under the Retooled Community Support Program (RCSP). Last January, 2nd IBPA murdered Ronnie Villamor, a pastor and media worker, in Milagros, Masbate.

This February, another spate of killings was recorded in Camarines Sur and Camarines Norte. In just a week, six civilians were killed by elements of the military and police. Enrique Cabilles, Arnel Candelaria and Nomer Peda were massacred in Brgy. Lanot, Mercedes while Brgy. Kagawad Melandro Verso was killed at his residence in Brgy. Dumagmang, Labo. Kgd. Verso’s family also reported that personal belongings, including their jewelries, amounting to millions were stolen during the incident. In the same week, a farmer accused of having connections to the revolutionary movement was killed in Pasacao, Camarines Sur. In all cases, police and military followed the ‘nanlaban’ script: that they fired at the victims out of self-defense.

A minor was also abducted by the 83rd IBPA after an encounter with the NPA last February 1 at Brgy. Toytoy, Garchitorena, Camarines Sur. Almost a month after the incident, the military still refuses to reveal the minor’s wherabouts to his parents.

Farm-to-market roads and other useless programs cannot deceive the people who have been systematically stolen from, exploited and terrorized by the fascist state. Instead, the BDP further proves that the state upholds only the interests of dictators and bureaucrat capitalists. NDF-Bikol calls on the Bikolano masses to resist the implementation and relentlessly expose the implementation of BDP as a worthless program of the terrorist regime. They must demand the defunding of these types of fascist rackets and call for the realignment of the people’s funds to socioeconomic programs which will genuinely benefit the masses.

More than ever, it is now essential for the people to unite and protect their communities from the attacks of the military and other agents of the fascist state. Intensify the call to junk EO 70, the primary basis of the NTF-ELCAC’s power, and ultimately, to overthrow the fascist US-Duterte regime.