Read in: Hiligaynon

NDF-Panay and its allied organizations reach out our hearts to and embrace the wives, children, relatives and friends of the martyrs of the brutal massacre perpetuated by the dictator Duterte’s fascist minions.

Duterte and his junta militar NTF-ELCAC did not let the year 2020 go without again soaking their foul-smelling hands into the blood of the masses. From Oplan Sempo in Negros Oriental of the same month December 27 in 2018 it is now Oplan Arvak-Panay with Oplan Paglalansag Omega opening its first batch of killings and arrests based on planted evidences yesterday December 30. It was General Debold Sinas, then PNP-7 Regional Director who directed the butchery of Oplan Sempo, now Oplan Arvak-Panay’s main butchers are PRO-6 Regional Director Brig Gen Rolando Miranda and CIDG-6 director Lt Col Hervacio Balmaceda.

The massacre was planned way ahead by the junta, employing units from CIDG-NCR, CIDG-4-A, RPOC-6, RIU-6, PPOC-Capiz, PPOC-Iloilo, RMFB, Special Action Force battalion and PAF air units among others. More than a thousand police and military personnel were involved, with a battalion strong force deployed into the mountain barangays to execute the traitorous massacre and arrests of the peasant masses.

No amount of words and deeds to cover-up their mass murder by the murderous fascist police and military could ever recompense for the unequaled savagery they inflicted upon the masses at the dusk of dawn yesterday. Between 3:00-4:00 in the morning the raiding units simultaneously swooped upon the sleeping residents of barangays Lahug, Aglinab, Acuňa, Tacayan, Roosevelt, Nayawan and Daan Sur all of Tapaz, Capiz and barangays Garangan and Masaroy of Calinog, Iloilo. In less than an hour 9 peasants were treacherously murdered while asleep in their very own homes and 16 arrested.

Obviously long-planned and premeditated the mercenary troops killed Tumanduk chairman and ex-brgy captain Roy Giganto, brgy councilors Reynaldo Katipunan and Mario Aguirre of Lahug, lupon member Eliseo Gayas Jr of Aglinab, 66 year-old Maurito Diaz of Tacayan, 63 year-old Artelito Katipunan of Acuňa, brgy captain Garson Catamin and 62 year-old Rolando Diaz, Sr. of Nayawan, and Joemar Vidal of Daan Sur. The fascists never showed any search warrant to the victims but suddenly barged into their homes, shouted invectives, forcibly let out the wives and children from the houses, ordered them to lie flat on the wet cold ground. They then riddled the victims with bullets at close range.

Barely five hours after the state forces’ carnage , radio stations in Iloilo and Capiz were broadcasting the incident and direct interviews from the victims’ families relating the barbaric killings and arbitrary arrests. We hear the overall terror, panic, tragedy and devastation that the fascist mercenaries befell on the peasant masses two days before the New Year. Radio listeners and social media netizens were shocked and could hardly believe what they heard, read and saw. The new year is coming and Duterte’s terror forces made sure that the new year for the Tumandok in Central Panay, it would not only be unhappy but tragic and miserable.

It took Miranda and Balmaceda more than 12 hours after their killing spree to concoct their fake version of the massacre, leaving reporters waiting for hours for their press conference. It was late afternoon when only the CIDG chief faced media, giving the same disgusting, retching lies to which the public has gotten used to: “the victims were killed because ‘nanlaban’ and those arrested were possessing illegal firearms and explosives”.

But the spontaneous and candid stories told to media by the victims’ wives, children and relatives, their heart rending tales of anguish and anger had not only a grain of truth in them but the whole brutal truth as seen by their eyes, heard by their ears and the terror and shock felt thru their bones.

The relatives of those killed and arrested told various radio reporters the same truth. They were not served or shown the search warrant, they were forced out of their own houses, the victims were murdered at close range. The wives were not allowed to go near, to see, to touch their husbands lying in their blood.

It is interesting to note that seven of these attacked barangays are under military occupation by RCSP units of the 12 th IBPA since mid-June 0f 2020, and one by a CAFGU detachment. Most of the barangay officials of these barangays have succumbed to the RCSP’s pressure to declare the CPP-NPA-NDF persona non grata, to attend rallies denouncing the revolutionary movement, to form military-initiated “associations”. The residents have endured the military occupation of their public infrastructures and even their private homes. They were under the virtual dictate and control of Duterte’s fascists forces.

It is so preposterous for the victims, to be so bold as to keep firearms and explosives in their own homes when they have been under military occupation for more than six months.

The real intent of the junta militar with the tyrant Duterte at the helm, is to terrorize the people of Panay especially the peasants in the countryside – the Tumandok who struggle to defend their ancestral lands from the landgrabbing of the 3 rd IDPA, from the destructive Jalaur megadam, from the deceptive greening programs and the hundreds of thousands more peasants in the region who struggle against land-use conversion, for their right to cultivate land, eliminate usury, lower the land rent and demand higher farm wages.

Duterte thinks that the only way to impose his absolute power and control over the people to his criminal and traitorous anti-people policies, to his corruption and greed and that of his cohorts and to his servitude to US and Chinese imperialism is thru state terrorism or Duterterorismo. Some people in the attacked barangays and nearby may have indeed been terrorized by now, but their fear has been overcome by their righteous indignation against the trampling of their basic rights and they cry out for revolutionary justice.

Taas kamao at hustisya para sa mga martir ng Tapaz 9 masaker!
Mabuhay ang masa!