• THERESA MAE DULMAN
A unit of the Armando Sumayang Jr. Command-New People’s Army (ASJC-NPA) owned up to the killing of a 56-year-old woman in Sitio Fabrica, Barangay Camansi, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, on Saturday.
The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office reported that the victim, identified as Virginia Salmorin, manager of the SPED X Quarry, was at her store when the two unidentified suspects arrived pretending to be her customers.
When Salmorin attended to them, she was shot multiple times with an unidentified caliber firearm, sustaining fatal wounds to her head and underarm.
The suspects fled on foot toward Sitio Makilo, leaving behind seven fired cartridges, one slug, and one live round at the scene.
A statement issued by the red fighters claimed the execution as a punitive action against the victim, whom they alleged was an asset for the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
On December 13, the group also took responsibility for the killing of Alberto Jimenez, 52, in Barangay Camansi, for his alleged role as an intelligence asset for the military.
The ASJC-NPA claimed that Salmorin and Jimenez provided intelligence that led to the November 30, 2022, deaths of the latter’s brother peasant organizer Joseph Jimenez, and National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultant Ericson Acosta in the same barangay.
The rebel group asserted that the killing was an act of revolutionary justice and served as a warning to other military assets in the region to surrender to the nearest NPA unit.*
