Witness in Negros farmers massacre in police custody
BACOLOD CITY: A witness in the custody of the Philippine National Police (PNP) has identified a suspect in the brutal killing of nine civilians in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, on Saturday night.
“The witness knows personally one of the suspects because he lives here. Therefore, he could tell exactly what happened and identify the suspect,” said Chief Supt. John Bulalacao, regional police director of Western Visayas, who visited the site of the massacre in Hacienda Nene, Barangay Bulanon, Sagay City, with top military officials on Tuesday.
Bulalacao said the witness could support their claim that the incident in Sagay was the handiwork of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
But he did not say if the suspect is a member of the NPA, as the profiling of the suspect is still ongoing.
Bulalacao said the police are still looking at three angles in the mass killing, including the possibility that those civilians who were recruited on the same day might have been killed by hired goons, or by claimants to a property occupied by the victims, aside from the involvement of the communist rebels.
The police director added that he was inclined to believe that the incident was perpetrated by the NPA to discredit the Duterte administration, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the PNP.
According to Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr., almost all people in the area are supporting the NPA because of poverty and unequal distribution of wealth.
The reported existence of a private army in the area is also being investigated, Bulalacao said.
“The nine massacre victims were resting inside the makeshift tent in the hacienda, when they were attacked and shot by five to six suspects. Three of the victims were burned by the suspects, along with six others who also succumbed to gunshot injuries,” said Chief Inspector West Edquila of the PNP Crime Laboratory 6.
Armed Forces chief Gen. Carlito Galvez, who also visited the killing site, said the “Red October” plot they exposed earlier and which aims to destabilize the Duterte administration included the Oplan Bungkalan of the NPA and the CPP.
The fatalities, who were members of the militant group National Federation of Sugar Workers, had occupied the hacienda as part of an agrarian reform assertion campaign called Oplan Bungkalan and Okupasyon of the NPA as part of their plan to oust President Rodrigo Duterte, according to Bulalacao.
“Oplan Bungkalan at Okupasyon (is a) a grand design to occupy private and government property using their (NPA) mass base and to create untoward incident then blame it on the government,” according to a PNP report.
Bulalacao likened what the slain farmers did to that done by urban poor group Kadamay that stormed and seized unoccupied government housing projects.
When asked if the nine victims were sacrificial lambs, Galvez said they were used as “bait.”
“Even ordinary people can see that this was a manipulation of somebody, or by an organization, at the expense of the victims,” he added.
“It is really part of the big plan to impute a negative image and discredit the government, not only national(ly) but (also) international(ly),” Bulalacao pointed out.
The CPP has dismissed as “outright lies” the statements of Malacañang that the NPA was behind the massacre of the nine farm workers.
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