Karapatan condemns the latest reported human rights and international law violations perpetrated by state security forces in Negros Occidental and Northern Samar.
In Cauayan, Negros Occidental, elements of the 15th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) and the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) abducted and summarily executed 69-year old farmer Ramon Enseniales on July 29, 2024. Enseniales was reportedly suffering from an illness and resting in a hut in Sitio Pasto, Barangay Basak when he was seized by the soldiers and SAF elements. Local residents reportedly heard gunshots after the abduction.
The day after, Philippine Army 3rd Infantry Division chief Lt. Col. J-Jay Javines falsely claimed that the ailing and elderly Enseniales was a member of the New People’s Army killed in an encounter. Local residents, however, asserted that Enseniales was a civilian and denied that an encounter took place in that area that day.
In Northern Samar, a lockdown has been imposed by the 20th IBPA in two barangays of Catubig town. The lockdowns form part of the focused military operations in the area since May of this year. Residents of these barangays with a population of about 3,000 have reportedly been forbidden from going to their copra kilns, thus disrupting their livelihoods. With restrictions on the residents’ mobility, they have also not been able to plant rice, vegetables and root crops. The farmers are now hard-pressed finding money for their daily subsistence and their children’s schooling.
These barangays had already reportedly been subjected to lockdowns in November 2023 and February this year. Barangays Imelda and San Francisco in Las Navas town were also reportedly locked down by the 20th IBPA from July 9 to 16, 2024 after soldiers shot a civilian.
Targeting non-combatants like Enseniales and preventing or restricting civilians from access to food are both violations of international humanitarian law, which the Marcos Jr. regime has been increasingly resorting to in the run-up to its self-imposed deadline of crushing the insurgency by year’s end.
Karapatan demands a stop to the Marcos Jr. regime’s fascist and militarist campaigns, ignoring the deep-seated roots of the armed conflict and running roughshod over the people’s human rights.