ILOILO CITY—A top Church leader on Negros Island decried the Duterte administration’s bloodthirsty response to the bloodbath in Negros Oriental province, appealing to President Rodrigo Duterte to abandon plans to declare martial law and instead tread on a path to peace by resuming talks with communist guerrillas.
“Martial law is neither the answer to the centuries-old agrarian problem nor to the decades of armed rebellion,” said San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza in a statement. “Martial rule during the Marcos era did not lead to genuine peace. Instead it worsened the insurgency problem,” he said.
The Church official was responding to a statement by Salvador Panelo, presidential spokesperson and chief legal counsel, that Duterte could declare martial law in Negros Oriental as a response to the bloodbath there that had killed 14 people already since last July 23.
Among those killed was lawyer Anthony Trinidad, who was shot dead in Guihulngan City.
Alminaza said talks between the government and rebels should resume and a ceasefire put in place instead of sending in more soldiers that could only mean more bloodshed.
“As we pray for justice and for the souls of our dear departed who became victims of the Negros ‘killing fields’, once more, we fervently express our people’s longing for peace and our urgent cry to end the killings!” said the bishop.
“We are saddened that instead of negotiating for an end to armed hostilities, the government has recently deployed 300 elite police Special Action Force commandos,” Alminaza said.
The Philippine National Police (PNP)on Wednesday (July 31) relieved Col. Raul Tacaca as Negros Oriental police director but no arrest had been made in the killing of civilians which included a city councilor, former town mayor, teachers and a year-old boy.
“Even now, human and civil rights are being trampled upon, leaving more and more widows and orphans in our midst,” the bishop said.
“Enough! Have we not learned from the lessons of Marcos-era martial law? Are we not still reeling from those years of political repression and violent reprisals?” Alminaza said.
The Defend Negros #StopTheAttacks network, which included families of victims of killings on the island, is also opposing the declaration of martial law, calling it a “militarist solution.”
“Do not use our inconsolable grief to impose yet another brutal state policy that would later on put more lives in peril,” the group said in a statement.
Police and military officials have blamed New People’s Army (NPA) rebels for the bloodshed.
The rebels, however, denied being the perpetrators of killings that targeted civilians. Rebel leaders said police and the military had unleashed death squads on the civilian populace in retaliation for the ambush-killing of four police officers who had been tagged as enemies of the people by the rebels.
Civilians are being targeted by the Duterte administration on the basis of mere suspicion they were aiding rebels, rebel leaders said.
“We remind both sides of the armed conflict that genuine peace can never be achieved through military adventurism and tit-for-tat conflict,” Alminaza said.
“We reiterate our call for integral peace, one that addresses the roots of social injustice,” the San Carlos bishop added.
The four Catholic bishops on Negros Island earlier issued a joint pastoral statement directing the daily ringing of church bells on the island every night at 8 p.m. to call for justice for the victims and an end to the killings./TSB