Gen. Vicente Danao, police chief, is deceiving the Filipino people when he falsely and melodramatically described the police officer who was killed last Saturday in a gunbattle with the New People’s Army in Northern Samar like a social worker delivering aid and medical service.

Gen. Danao’s description contradicts the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s own report which described the patrolman as a member of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion (RMFB), a counterinsurgency combat unit of the PNP.

The RMFB forces are armed and trained to carry out search operations and engage in combat with guerrilla fighters of the NPA. Together with other military and police units, the PNP-RMFB forces are notorious for human rights abuses against the peasant masses in the Samar provinces, including illegal arrests, indiscriminate firing of weapons, stealing of fruits and crops, and chickens and other farm animals.

The NPA firmly adheres to the principles of international humanitarian law which gives primordial importance to the protection of civilians at all times.