The Communist Party of the Philippines condemns in the strongest terms the aerial bombing operations carried out by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) last March 4 in Sitio Mainaga, Barangay Iba, Cabanglasan, Bukidnon. This operation saw the crash of one FA-50 fighter jet in nearby Kalatungan mountain range, where two fascist soldiers perished.

The aerial bombing operations was carried out just past midnight at 12:30 a.m., where people counted at least eight massive bombs being dropped on all sides. Contrary to claims by the AFP spokesperson, the New People’s Army (NPA) in Bukidnon reports that there were no AFP ground troops operating in the area, and no armed encounter took place, making the aerial bombing a pure display of brazen terrorism.

While the bombs were dropped far from any unit of the NPA and did not result in NPA casualties, it terrorized people living in nearby communities. They were roused from their sleep by the massive explosions that came one after another.

The AFP bombing operations can only be described as terrorism from the sky. It endangered the lives of civilians in nearby communities and instilled fear among the people, especially children. This incident is a clear violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks that may cause harm to civilians. The Bukidnon bombing comes just days after aerial strafing and firing missiles in Oriental Mindoro that terrorize peasants and indigenous Mangyan people.

This incident is a stark reminder of the AFP’s policy of terrorist overkill and its blatant disregard for human rights and international humanitarian law in the reckless and brutal conduct of its counterinsurgency operations.

The crash of the FA-50 and the dropping of bombs in the proximity of civilian communities reveal the policy of overkill of the AFP and its use of excessive and disproportionate force in terrorizing the people, in the vain hope of forcing them to stop supporting the NPA.

The bombing operations last Tuesday highlights how the so-called AFP modernization, purportedly to face an external threat, continues to be directed against the NPA and the people. This is despite repeated pompous declarations of the AFP that they have already crushed the NPA. This is the face of US military funding that goes to the purchase of bombs, missiles and rockets used against the Filipino people.

The Filipino people deplore how the AFP is hailing the two pilots who died in the crash as heroes, when in fact they were instruments of fascist terror, bringing fear and destruction to communities where they drop their payload of bombs.

We call on the democratic sectors of the Filipino people to unite and demand an immediate stop to the use of aerial bombing, which terrorizes the oppressed and exploited sectors, violate their human rights and trample on international humanitarian law.