Barely two weeks after the start of the year, elements of the 94th Infantry Battalion (IB) of the Philippine Army has again soaked their hands with peasant blood. These fascist soldiers have no shame in covering up their crime by declaring an encounter with Red fighters and tagging their victim as a New People’s Army (NPA) casualty.

I reiterate, there was no armed encounter between the 94th IB and the NPA’s Mount Cansermon Command on the morning of January 9 at Purok Maliko-liko, Sitio Cunalom, Barangay Carabalan, Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental. Instead, 94th IB soldiers killed in cold-blood farmer Jose Gonzalez, 49 years old, a resident of the said purok.

According to Gonzalez’ daughter, in an interview with local media, her father was taken by eight personas who presented themselves as NPA members on the evening of January 8. After her father left with the questionable personalities, she and her common-law husband heard gunshots around 12 midnight and 3:00 in the morning the next day, January 9. Jose Gonzalez was not heard of since until PNP Himamaylan announced him as an “unnamed” NPA member.

Using the NPA’s good name to deceive the people and tarnish the NPA’s prestige, declaring fake armed encounters and tagging innocent peasants as NPA casualties are all tricks up the fascists’ sleeve.

The criminal 94th IB owes much blood debt to the people of Himamaylan City and neighboring Binalbagan and Kabankalan City. Just last year, in its focused military operations, 94th IB soldiers perpetrated at least 60 incidents of human rights violations or five incidents every month. They killed innocent farmers, ransacked peasant homes, indiscriminately bombed near peasant communities, threatened and harassed farmers they suspect as NPA supporters, and cashed on farmers they coerced to surrender as NPA members and militia via E-CLIP.

Without any sense of morality, elements of the 94th IB also hunted children of those they suspect as NPA members to use as bait and leverage against their parents. Families of suspected NPA members were also put under surveillance and were frequently harassed by these fascist soldiers.

The butcher soldiers of the 94th IB killed brothers Jayson and Arnulfo Sabanal, also of Purok Maliko-liko on March 26, 2022 and declared them as NPA casualties as well. It was also the 94th IB with the 47th IB who brutally killed NDF Consultant Ericson Acosta and peasant organizer Joseph Jimenez last November 30, 2022 at Sitio Makilo, Barangay Camansi, Kabankalan City.

Furthermore, this bloodthirsty army troop killed captured NPA members like Nikka “Ka Chai” de la Cruz, Roel “Ka Jack” Ladera, Alden “Ka Rocky” Rodriguez and Roel “Ka Caloy” Deguit last July 6, 2022 dubbed as Binalbagan 4 and then AGC-NPA spokesperson Ka Juanito Magbanua who was killed at Sitio Medel, Barangay Carabalan on October 10, 2022 even after being rendered hors de combat.

With the merciless murder of Jose Gonzalez, Col. Michael Samson’s call for “local peace talks” is quickly exposed as murderous psychological warfare that is a failed attempt at deodorizing the 303rd Brigade’s brutal counterrevolutionary war. All guerrilla fronts under the Apolinario Gatmaitan Command of the NPA Negros have time and again firmly rejected and opposed “local peace talks” and will never engage in such a phoney undertaking.

The AGC-NPA is the Negrosanon’s genuine people’s army. All NPA units in Negros are commanded to mount tactical offensives that will make the fascist enemy pay for all their blood debts to the people of Negros especially the peasant masses. Focused military operations that cause serious harm to the people must be foiled. With the infinite support of the masses, the NPA will surely surmount the Marcos regime’s armed campaign of suppression.###
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