In a recent statement, the 3rd Infantry Division released a statement of the alleged ‘purge of the communists’ to pin to the revolutionary movement as the perpetrators of the brutal murders of Randy Malayao, Randall Echanis, and Zara Alvarez. These cover-ups are pointless, however; as the brutal crimes have clear indications that the killings were perpetrated by the AFP-PNP, no less.

It is the state who has made Negros its lab rat for fascism and killing fields since the implementation of Memorandum Order 32 and Executive Order 70. This has led to the Sagay 9 massacre, Oplan Sauron 1 and 2, and Sauron-like operations that led to the killings of legal activists, innocent farmers, and human rights advocates such as Atty. Ben Ramos, Malayao, Echanis, Alvarez, Toto Patigas, and many more, along the tens of thousands murdered in cold blood in Duterte’s drug war.

Before these gruesome murders, the victims have been consistently red-tagged as ‘NPA supporters’ and harassed by the state through anonymous death threats, incriminating posters, and many more. Some cases, like those in Oplan Sauron have incriminating footage and witnesses that the mercenary troops desperately bury. Their killing frenzy knows no bounds, as proven in the Sulu fiasco of policemen murdering the military.

Afterwards, state forces carry out half-baked investigations not for the purpose of solving the crimes, but to cover them up instead. These investigations have not resulted to any serious incrimination of the real perpetrators and instead use unknowing scapegoats. The real murderers remain to roam free, and the biggest of them have even been promoted such as Sinas, Vinoya, and Arevalo. Thus, it is both illogical and stupid for the state to pin the crimes on the revolutionary movement when clearly it is the AFP-PNP who committed them.

The mercenary AFP-PNP do not have the moral high ground nor the capacity to force such claims when they themselves are the forces behind the sabotaging of the peace talks between the GRP and the NDFP, on top of them carrying out their corrupted, fake and enforced surrenders, illegal arrests, torture, threats, strafings and hamleting, along their militarization in the countryside areas in Negros Island. They have repeatedly violated the Joint Agreement of Safety and Immunity Guarantee (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement to Respect Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and proven themselves to be killing machines.

With the passing of the draconian Anti-Terror Law, and the pushing of the imposition of death penalty despite the ongoing public health and worsening socioeconomic crisis brought about by the semi-colonial and semi-feudal ruling system, it is clear that Duterte and his minions are obsessed in silencing dissent and opposition. In effect, this has broadened the united front of revolutionary, progressive, and even conservative forces ever more determined to oust the tyrannical regime. History has already proven that these strongman methods cannot paralyze, but only anger and widen the mass movement against the regime.

The revolution’s enemy is the ruling elite class of bourgeois compradors, big landlords, monopoly capitalists and their fascist tools of the military, police, and paramilitary who oppress and commit the most atrocious of crimes against the people and their organizations. Only the state and their fascist troops murder innocents to further their selfish interests and aims.

The National Democratic Front-Negros and all the revolutionary forces condemn the cover-up of the Duterte regime of the killings they have committed. We call on the different people’s organizations and freedom-loving individuals to expose the fascist crimes of the state and exhaust all means to bring about the fall of the militarized regime who has revealed itself to be the enemy of the people. ###