Two days before the year ends, 12th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army (12IBPA) troopers and the Philippine National Police in Western Visayas swooped down on Tumandok communities in Calinog in Iloilo and Tapaz in Capiz and killed the victims in a Synchronized Enhanced Management of Police Operations (SEMPO).
Sison said there are enough bases for small teams “to conduct armed partisan operations in the cities to mete out revolutionary justice against Duterte’s terrorist forces based in the urban areas.”
The CPP said the NPA has built new guerrilla fronts and expanded old guerrilla fronts in several regions – including Southern Tagalog, Bicol, Negros, Eastern Visayas, Northeast Mindanao, North Central Mindanao, Southern Mindanao and Far South Mindanao — despite the large-scale and sustained military operations mounted by the AFP the past year.
“We are very much in touch with our people and we truly express their deepest sentiments when we called on them to wear white as an act of solidarity and to express our desire for and commitment to peace, sanctity of life, human dignity and human rights, and our collective call to end the killings, COVID pandemic and abuse of our common home,” San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza said.
“The AFP, has so far, failed to detect and prevent the gatherings and assemblies which have already been held in some revolutionary areas… In some villages, the masses and local NPA units were able to mount their gatherings right under the nose of the AFP,” the CPP said.
Troops belonging to the 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) of the AFP and the Region IV-A Command of the PNP killed Carlito Zonio, Vilma Salabao, Wesley Obmerga, Jonathan Alberga, and Niño Alberga, workers of a mango farm in Sitio Malalim, Barangay San Juan of the said town, human rights group Karapatan-Southern Tagalog said.
“As your Bishop, I encourage you all who will come for Mass to wear white…to express our desire for and commitment to peace, sanctity of life, human dignity and human rights and our collective call to end the killings, the Covid pandemic and abuse of our common home,” Alminaza said.
Frontline Defenders cited Tanzania where it investigated a spate of attacks on activists’ homes after it became known locally that they were housing LGBTIQ+ people or sex workers at risk of homelessness, hunger and police violence on the streets.
The Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP) said that while the Advent season has arrived, “unpeace” reigns as the Rodrigo Duterte government continues to consider human rights as a barrier to peace and order.
“In the face of the vicious attacks by Duterte’s military and police forces both in the cities and countryside, the CPP Central Committee is forced to dispense with the traditional holiday ceasefire this year,” the CPP said.
