Last September 11, 2020, the 303rd IBPA recently posted on their Facebook page a video entitled “Save Batang Negros.” It featured Anne Jiesel Castil, a 20-year who has been held captive by the military for over a year. She was illegally arrested by armed state agents on May 24, 2019 in Siaton, Negros Oriental, along with two other guests of the 3rd District Negros Oriental Farmers Alliance. Castil hails from a lower middle peasant class origin.

In the video, Castil was made to introduce herself as former member of KM before proceeding to recite the usual reactionary black propaganda which depict the youth as “targets of deception” of the CPP-NPA-NDF and then proceeds to echo the AFP’s typical red-tagging tirade against legal progressive organizations.

Her AFP-provided script then proceeds to making absurd allegations of widespread corruption, and unequal treatment of women within the NPA. She then relates stories fed to her by her military captors about a female NPA commander eating dried squid while the rest of fighters were rationed dried fish; about wounded female Red fighters not being given prompt medical attention; and other ridiculous stories.

We in NPA-Southeast Negros denounce the 303rd IBPA for manipulating a young and vulnerable Castil. She is being used as an instrument in their psychological warfare and so-called civil-military operations under their deceptive Retooled Community Support Programs.

Castil is being used in vain by the military in their desperate effort to stop the revolutionary transformation of the youth and spread baseless fear among their parents.

Earlier this year, Castil was also manipulated by the 15th IBPA into red-tagging dozens of ordinary farmers in the hinterlands of the 3rd District of Negros Oriental. She was used to make the AFP’s fabricated lists of alleged NPA members and supporters in the mountainous communities of Southeast Negros appear credible.

Having been stripped of legal protection, Castil is a victim of the military’s psychological abuse. Under pain of punishment, she is made to cooperate and bow to the enemy’s wishes. The RTF-ELCAC in Negros Island is the brains behind this grave abuse of human rights. They must be denounced and held accountable for their exploitation of Anne Jiesel Castil.

We demand that she be immediately released from the AFP’s captivity.###