“What lies ahead for the Filipino people with Sinas’s appointment is a bloody party of human rights violations where Duterte’s most rabid and murderous lapdogs are given freer rein to merrily kill, kill, and kill with wanton impunity.”
“With the trail of killings, illegal arrest and detention, and other criminal acts committed in the course of the implementation of the local synchronized enhanced management of police operations (SEMPO) in Negros, which were committed under his purview, he is in no way ‘good and honest.’ ”
Lieutenant General Noel Clement, the newly appointed AFP chief of staff and Central Visayas police chief Brigadier General Debold Sinas have bloody records during their stint in the Visayas region.
“The series of attacks threaten to undermine the country’s peace and order situation, the State’s failure to identify and punish the perpetrators further breeds a culture of impunity and violence.”
“I am from Mindanao, the first island where Martial Law was implemented. All the killings that is happening in Negros right now, also happened in Mindanao last 2017.”
“We call on all freedom-loving individuals and organizations to unite in holding the Duterte government accountable for turning Negros island into a killing field.”
Progressives said these killings were carried out under Memorandum 32, where more military forces were deployed in three provinces, including Negros.
Albayalde’s statement justifying Oplan Sauron reeks of impunity. Like Oplan Tokhang, the Philippine National Police wishes the public to regard as normal the butchering of civilians.
Human rights group Karapatan documented 250 victims of extrajudicial killings and 10 victims of enforced disappearances from July 2016 until March this year. Moreover, nearly 370,000 civilians were affected by military bombings and 450,000 have evacuated due to military operations, Karapatan data showed.
The violence that erupt from time to time in Negros is but a painful reminder of the longstanding land problem and unjust system operative in Negros.
By DEE AYROSO