Denounce 9th IDPA’s violence and cowardice, make them pay for their crimes against the Bikolano people!
For the 9th IDPA to turn its brutal attacks on civilians whenever they fail to defeat units of the NPA-Bikol is cowardice of the greatest magnitude. Last December 28, after their casualty count of not less than two wounded and one dead during a failed attempt to attack a unit of NPA in Sityo Campo Nueve, Brgy. Del Carmen, Lagonoy, Camarines Sur became publicly exposed, the murderous military fired and bombed the said community indiscriminately. Residents were traumatized by the two-day relentless deluge of bullets and bombs. Just for the first day, not less than 10 bombs were reported to hit the sitio perimeter. This caused the forced evacuation of around 100 residents of Sityo Campo Nueve.
While pulling all efforts to cover their destructive and spineless operation in Lagonoy, the butcher 9th IDPA is engrossed with spreading lies of a fake encounter in Brgy. Salvacion, Camarines Sur last December 12, 2021. They are falsely claiming that a firefight ensued between combined military and police elements and an NPA unit which allegedly resulted to the death of a Red fighter. The truth is, there was no encounter in the said area. The butchers just fired purposelessly in a secluded part of the barangay and then went on killing a civilian – JB Bon, a copra farmer from Brgy. Baya, Ragay, Camarines Sur, around 40 years old and a father of two.
The 9th IDPA assiduously trains itself in the manufacture of fake news in line with their Commander-in-Chief Duterte’s marching orders to do everything to make it seem that their counterinsurgency campaign is actually going somewhere. From 2017 to 2021, the division had already conjured 49 fake encounters. These ended with 57 civilian victims of extrajudicial killings as well as the deaths of eight elements of the PNP and AFP-PNP-CAFGU agents.
In their desperation to score victories and completely crush the CPP-NPA-NDF before Duterte’s term ends, the regime did not declare a ceasefire. Their attacks against the masses and rights violation continue to escalate even as the devastation of typhoon Odette is yet to abate and the country is still in the middle of a pandemic.
NDF-Bikol calls on all media practitioners to be critical of the data and news that the 9th IDPA gives them before readily regurgitating it to the public. It is their obligation towards human rights violation victims to expose the truth behind these abuses.
In the end, no lie can ever remain hidden. The enemy’s foulness would always be unveiled and could not be salvaged by any effort to package it as ‘success’. This cannot change the fact that their hands shall always remain stained by the blood of countless Bikolano masses that they victimized. Along this, people whose desire to make these criminals pay for their crimes and be genuinely liberated also remain resolute.