Compatriots-NDFP statement on the AFP’s fascist rampage in Negros
From around the world, the members of Compatriots-NDFP—the revolutionary mass organization of Filipinos overseas—raise our fists in tribute to the people and fighters of Negros. We give our highest honor to the fallen martyrs of the people’s revolution, and to all those whose lives were mercilessly taken by the fascist troops of the US-Marcos regime on April 19. Their sacrifice has only steeled our commitment toward the path of revolution to end once and for all the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system at the root of death and misery for the Filipino people.
On April 19, the 79th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines unleashed terror on communities in Barangay Salamanca, Toboso, Negros Occidental. In a blatant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law, the military indiscriminately strafed and fired at peasant communities in pursuit of members of the New People’s Army. We salute the Red fighters who did everything they could to protect the masses from the AFP’s indiscriminate attacks. In total, 19 people were murdered in cold blood, and over 600 individuals were forcibly displaced from the attacks.
Among the civilian casualties were RJ Ledesma, Alyssa Alano, Maureen Santuyo, and Errol Wendel. Ledesma, a journalist with progressive media outlets Paghimutad-Negros and Altermidya, was in the area reporting on the effects of renewable energy projects on vulnerable peasant communities. Meanwhile, Alano, a student leader from the UP Diliman University Student Council and chairperson of the League of Filipino Students chapter there, was immersing and doing community work with sugarcane farmers who have for decades faced intense semi-feudal exploitation, land-grabbing, and militarization. Both Santuyo and Wendel were youth activists who chose to be peasant and farm worker organizers after being exposed to the reality of widespread landlessness in the Philippine countryside.
Compatriots-NDFP is also aware that two Filipinos from overseas—Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem—were among the 19 killed. Similar to Ledesma and Alano, Prijoles and Sorem were spending time in peasant communities to learn and be a part of their daily lives and struggles. Their choice to return home and seek solutions to the roots of poverty from within the Philippines is an act of bold defiance to a government that would rather ship its people overseas in the millions instead of addressing the problems of massive landlessness and joblessness in the country. It is a reminder to all of us overseas that our duties to the Filipino people include going back home and serving the people directly.
Filipinos overseas must join the fight to demand justice not only for the victims of the military’s April 19 attack, but all those who have fallen victim to the long history of state violence on the island. We have not forgotten that in 2018, former president Rodrigo Duterte designated Negros under a “state of lawless violence” through his Memorandum Order 32, which ushered in a flood of military personnel and counterinsurgency programs. This would become the impetus behind the Sagay Massacre in 2021, in which nine sugar farmers—including women and minors—were brutally killed and dozens more illegally arrested by state forces.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. continued de facto martial law throughout the island, with more than one-third of extrajudicial killing victims, or 52 out of 135, coming from Negros between 2022 to 2025. These attacks—including the disinformation and psychological warfare we are seeing now on social media—are being orchestrated under the regime’s so-called National Action Plan for Unity Peace and Development (NAP-UPD), and through its henchmen in the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. In turn, the regime’s counterinsurgency program is being orchestrated and funded directly by U.S. imperialism, as it knows that the people’s movement and revolution stands as the number one obstacle to U.S. hegemony in the region.
There is no better way to honor Prijoles, Sorem, Ledesma, Alano, Santuyo, Wendel, and all those whose blood has been spilled for the future of Negros and the futures of the Filipino people than to commit ourselves more deeply and more wholeheartedly to the people’s democratic revolution. The masses’ outpouring of support for the slain members of the people’s army despite the intense ongoing militarization on the island show just how much the masses embrace the revolution. They understand that it is only through seizing power into our own hands that widespread poverty and exploitation, state and corporate land-grabbing, fascist terror, and foreign domination can be eliminated from society.
Let us draw endless courage from the words of Nickson Villarin—the son of Rene Villarin Sr., one of the martyred Red fighters—who told the media directly: “Sa totoo, ang masasabi ko, saludo ako sa aking ama dahil nakibaka siya hanggang sa huling hininga. ‘Yan ang tunay na katapangan.” [In truth, what I can say is I salute my father because he fought until his last breath. That is real courage.]
Justice for all victims of state terror!
End de facto martial law in Negros!
Abolish the NTF-ELCAC! Junk the NAP-UPD! AFP out of the countryside! U.S. out of the Philippines!
Filipinos overseas—return home, serve the people, and join the New Peoples Army!
Advance the people’s democratic revolution until victory!
