Justice for Bernardo Guillen! Stop Killing Farmers!
Duterte’s war against the people gets bloodier and dirtier each day.
Bernardo Guillen, a farmer in his 50s from Brgy. Tan-awan, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, was found decapitated and already decomposing. His death makes the peasant death toll under the Duterte regime rise to 275.
Bernardo Guillen was cultivating their farm when a unit of the Mt. Cansermon Command – New People’s Army and the composite team of the 94th Infantry Batallion and 15th Infantry Batallion under the 302nd Brigade of the Philippine Army exchanged firefight. He immediately gathered his family to seek refuge. Upon reaching their house, members of the Philippine Army was already at their house telling them to evacuate. While on their way to the evacuation site, he went back to his house despite the opposition of his wife. His wife and children made it to the evacuation site but Bernardo Guillen never came back to them. After the encounter, his family went home but Bernardo Guillen never returned home. His family, with the help of the barangay tanod, went looking for him but to no avail. Nine days later and he was seen in a ravine near the encounter site, with his detached head placed near his decomposing body.
There is no one to blame but the Duterte regime and his fascist dogs on the incessant and merciless attacks on civilians. The barbaric murder of Bernardo Guillen is the latest crime by the bloodthirsty butchers of the fascist regime.
Bernardo Guillen is the third victim of mutilation for this year alone. Last February 28, Ka Rido of the Leonardo Panaligan Command was captured and killed after an armed encounter in Sitio Agpapataw, Brgy. Binobohan, Guihulngan City. When elements of the 94th IB released his dead body to his family, his fingers were cut off and bruises was evident all over his body. Another victim, Reken Remasog, 21 years old, of Brgy. Luz, Guihulngan City, sufferred from heavy beating and broken legs before he was shot dead. He was captured after a successful tactical offensive by the Leonardo Panaligan Commad in Sitio Tabago, Brgy. Sandayao, Guihulngan City. The military then paraded his as an NPA casualty.
Only the rabid dogs of Duterte can execute such merciless, brutal and barbaric killings. The NDF-Negros reiterates that such act is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. Protocol I and II guarantees for civilians and persons hors de combat. Mutilation constitutes a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts under the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The series of attacks on civilians perpetrated by the AFP and PNP only shows that it is in the nature of the fascist mercenaries to retaliate against innocent civilians following their frustration and failure of chasing the NPA. They are emboldened by state policies such as the Memorandum Order 32, Executive Order 70, and the Anti-Terror Act of 2020 which practically made Negros the regime’s “killling fields”.
We are one with the people of Negros in the demand for the tyrant Duterte and his armed cohorts to stop targeting and attacking civilians. We will continue to seek for justice for all victims of state-sponsored killings. It is then imperative for the people to link arms and resist the fascist Duterte regime. ###