Yesterday marked the 5th year of the Lianga Massacre of 2015. Revolutionary forces across the country join the rest of the Filipino people in recalling the brutal murder of Emerito Samarca, Executive Director of the ALCADEV community school, and Lumad leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Bello Sinzo. They were among those who led the community in the defense of their ancestral land and in efforts to raise their community’s social, economic and cultural life.

Far from punishing the perpetrators, the AFP and the Duterte regime even awarded the killers with funding, publicity and more guns. It even had the gall to misrepresent the group, known as the Magahat-Bagani paramilitary group in the region, as “NPA surenderees” and award them with government funds. One of its leaders, a certain Marcos Bocales, who misrepresent himself as a “datu,” is nothing but a hardcore Lumad killer. He figures prominently in the regime’s anti-Lumad, anti-people propaganda blitz.

Moreover, the fascist criminals continue to impose terror on the Lumad communities, threatening people to abandon their school and organizations, or face the “consequence.” In recent months, Lianga villages have suffered aerial bombings, alongside heightened military presence to intimidate the people and suppress their resistance against the planned entry of mining companies. For years, Lianga and the rest of the Andap Valley have long been coveted by the plunderers because of its rich deposits of gold and other valuable minerals.

The Party commends the people of Lianga for bravely fighting the fascist onslaught by the AFP against their communities. The resistance of the people of Lianga serves as inspiration for the peasant and minority masses around country resisting state terrorism, defending their civil and democratic rights, protecting the environment, defending their ancestral land and pushing for their demand for free distribution of land to the tillers of the land.

Together with the rest of the Filipino people, we hear the cries of the people of Lianga, seeking justice and demanding punishment for the criminal perpetrators of the Lianga massacre.

The case of the Lianga massacre has been duly heard before the people’s courts. The guilt of the perpetrators and masterminds of the crime have all been determined by the duly-constituted people’s courts. As the arm of the people’s organs of political power, the New People’s Army has been tasked to carry out the decision of the people’s courts.