Read in: Pilipino

The PNP already has an insurmountable amount of blood debt in Masbate but they still thirst for more. PNP Chief Guillermo Eleazar’s directive, during his visit in Bikol, to further intensify police operations in the said province means even more chaos, violence and distress for the Masbatenyo masses. Even without this trigger-happy order, 72 cases of killings were recorded in the province since the beginning of Duterte’s term. Eight out of the 11 cases of massacre in the region also happened in Masbate. This is equivalent to one Masbatenyo slain by AFP-PNP elements every month.

PNP’s loyalty is not with the people but with their chief tyrant Duterte and his senseless war against the people. In the midst of dire poverty brought by the pandemic, they are ready and willing to let the blood flow even more and to waste the lives and livelihood of the masses away. The public is aware of the brutality and indiscriminate police operations. Be it a child or an elderly, destitute or professional – no one is safe from being a victim of illegal arrest, torture or even extrajudicial killing and massacre. However abominable the crime is, the police easily escape accountability by repeatedly insisting the nanlaban argument like an old record player. To date, more than 30,000 victims of this nanlaban modus operandi and their families have been deprived of justice.

The NDF-Bikol calls on the Masbatenyo masses and all the Bikolano people to unite and bravely defend their ranks against intensified police attacks. In a time when the state and its armed forces are the ones who order mayhem and violence, the masses have no other recourse but their own organized strength. The AFP-PNP and the regime shall always find a way to whitewash their crimes against the people and to deprive all their victims of justice. As long as the state serves and is controlled by the ruling classes, be it with reactionary laws and judiciary to propaganda, the PNP’s tired out excuse that their victims all fought back (nanlaban) will always reign over the truth – however incredulous and full of holes the stories are.

The only way to prevent, defeat and end the PNP, AFP and all other state machinery of terrorism entirely is to combat the mercenary forces’ violence with the people’s armed struggle and decisively advance the people’s democratic revolution. Only with the triumph of the revolution shall this rotten system where it is the police and military’s duty to kill and kill in the name of their lords be over. Only until the red dawn rise, can the people make all the murderers pay for all their blood debts and only then can they attain genuine justice and peace.