The National Solidarity Mission (NSM) yesterday called for an end to “the relentless attacks on farming communities not only in Himamaylan and Kabankalan but in the whole Negros Island,” a press release from the group said.
The group also urged the Commission on Human Rights, the Philippine Congress and the Philippine Senate to conduct an impartial investigation on these cases in Negros, during a press conference at the Negros Press Club in Bacolod City yesterday to report back on their visit to Barangay Buenavista in Himamaylan City on June 22, following the Fausto family massacre on June 14 and Crispin Tingal on May 3, a press release from the group said.
The NSM is composed of representatives from the Philippine Congress, various organizations which include church people, farmers, women, indigenous peoples, environmental rights defenders, children’s rights defenders, among others.
Speaking at the press conference yesterday were Kabataan Partylist Representative Raoul Manuel, Gabriela secretary general Clarice Palce, Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) Bacolod Bishop Virgilio Amihan, Sister Maureen Catabian PCPR, Prof. Sarah Raymundo of BAYAN, Union ng Manggagawa sa Agrkilutura (UMA) chairperson Ariel Casilao, and Tiben Wahing of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC).
In a statement, the NSM indicated their major findings which include “a similar pattern in the killings of the Fausto family and the Crispin Tingal murder, which involved the frustrated killing of his family in their home in Sitio Dangalon, Brgy. Hilamonan.” It highlighted the human rights violations leading up to the killings of Tingal and the Fausto family.
“It is a culmination of a series of harassment, destruction of properties, violation of domicile, illegal search and red tagging that was similarly inflicted on the Tingal family who barely escaped a pattern of attacks, from red tagging to massacre,” the statement read.
During their visit to Himamaylan, the group spoke to the local community, who shared their own experiences of similar rights violations such as incidents of frustrated killing and illegal arrests, reports of threat, harassment, intimidation, among others.
Rep. Raoul Manuel said he together with Deputy minority leader France Castro of ACT and assistant minority leader Arlene Brosas of Gabriela filed on June 19 House Resolution 1091 calling on the Committee on Human Rights ng Kamara to investigate the massacre of the Fausto family. Manuel noted this is not the first resolution filed by Makabayan bloc related to civilian killings in Negros.
“We hope the PNP’s investigation of the Fausto massacre was genuinely impartial—only then would their supposed breakthrough have credibility. Problem is, reports on the ground say otherwise. Stories of coercion, in which witnesses are forced to testify and follow a script provided by the PNP to paint the NPA as perpetrators, have been shared with us. And sadly, none of this is new: what happened to the victims and survivors of the Sagay massacre—blamed for the very attack perpetrated on them—is a testament to the PNP’s same old modus operandi,” UMA chairperson Ariel Casilao said.
“As shepherd of the flocks (the Fausto’s) we call to bring it comes of the brutal and barbaric killings of the Fausto’s and put the perpetrators behind bars to end the widespread EJK in the Island of Negros,” said Bishop Amihan.*
