Centino’s call for amnesty is a sugar-coated bullet

This article is available in Chinese

The call for amnesty for members of the New People’s Army is a sugar-coated bullet. It is a vain psywar attempt to draw public attention away from rampant cases of torture and extrajudicial killings, violation of women and child rights, hamletting of communities, aerial bombing and artillery shelling, perpetrated by soldiers in the drive to traumatize and terrorize the masses, and dispossess them of their lands and livelihood in favor of multinational corporations.

General Centino is grossly hypocritical in talking about amnesty. He himself is directly responsible for the cowardly murder of many revolutionaries, including the wilfull killing of NPA spokesperson Ka Oris in 2021, during which he was the chief of the Philippine Army. As head of the AFP, he is responsible for the recent killing of Rogelio Posadas, NDFP Consultant in Negros, soon after he was abducted by military agents last April 19.

General Centino also wants to obscure the fact how rights under international humanitarian law are being violated wholesale by parading unarmed people (many lured by promises of “relief goods”) as “surrenderees,” denied of judicial processes, and subjected to public humiliation, with many forced to serve as military agents under pain of imprisonment or death, or eventually killed or jailed, after the military no longer finds them useful. The entire “surrender” drive, in fact, is a giant milking-cow of military officers who falsify lists to put their hands on millions upon millions of pesos under the so-called Enhanced Community Livelihood and Integration Program.

Centino’s amnesty proposal will be rejected by revolutionaries who are whole-heartedly committed to serving the oppressed and exploited masses. In the face of the Marcos regime’s heightened fascism and political repression, and subservience to foreign economic and geopolitical interests, they are even more determined to arouse, organize and mobilize the people in their numbers to fight for the country’s sovereignty and people’s well-being.

Centino's call for amnesty is a sugar-coated bullet