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Overseas Filipino grassroots organizations launched the “Defend Negros” campaign in response to the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) operation in Toboso, Negros Occidental that left 19 people dead on April 19, 2026.
One cannot sit with peasants shaped by generations of landlessness, listen to mothers narrate massacre, watch children learn the ordinary disciplines of fear, and still believe history may be resolved through technical adjustment alone.
“For the months that they were in Barangay Salamanca, Errol reported that 18-hectares of land being cultivated by 16 peasant worker families, or 32 individuals, should have long been awarded to the farm workers. Based on Errol’s research, the person controlling the land only holds a tax declaration, not title."
A national fact-finding mission organized by human rights groups revealed that the Armed Forces of the Philippines used excessive military force on April 19. Residents also confirmed that at least six of the 19 killed were civilians.
“This appears to be another attempt of the Marcos Jr. regime to hide its war crimes from international eyes.”
“This incident has brought me a lot of stress and I fear that the attacks against me and other activists and progressives in the Ilocos region will only escalate into more grievous attack.”
"They are seriously twisting the rules of international humanitarian law by insisting that everyone killed was a legitimate target in a military operation."
What happened in Negros was a microcosm of the ills of a semifeudal, semicolonial society.
“My mother’s day was not happy and so are the coming special occasions because he is not here anymore."
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