“I cannot think about how they were killed by bloodthirsty soldiers, my daughter who never got so much as a spanking from me,” said Sheila Alano. Her daughter, Alyssa, a 19-year-old student leader from the University of the Philippines, was among 19 killed by the military on April 19 in Toboso, Negros Occidental province.
“My daughter is gone and there’s nothing I can do to bring her back. I hope we can carry on her dreams for the poor farmers of Negros,” said Alano, addressing thousands of mourning students.
The military claims that all of the casualties were combatants, guerrilla rebels of the New People’s Army (NPA). The Communist Party of the Philippines, leading an insurrection from the countryside for over half a century, acknowledged that 10 of the 19 were red fighters.
The remaining nine victims are student leader Alyssa Alano, local journalist RJ Ledesma, peasant advocates Errol Wendel and Maureen Santuyo, local farmer Roel Sabillo and two minors, and Filipino-American activists Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem.
Despite the authorities maintaining the Toboso incident was one of the biggest armed encounters in recent memory, victims’ families, rights groups, and independently gathered evidence suggest that what actually took place was a massacre of civilians.
Eyewitnesses describe a heavy military presence over the island’s remote rural areas, which activists say compromised the evidence and led to multiple violations of international humanitarian law.
A national fact-finding mission, which concluded on May 15, found that immediately after the shooting in the village of Salamanca, around 700 local residents were forcibly evacuated from the vicinity.
The fact-finding mission treks across Salamanca village in May. Photo by Michael Beltran.
Kristina Conti of the National Union of People’s Lawyers was among the mission’s leaders.
“There’s a hole in the military’s story,” Conti told The Diplomat. She says the military was able to ensure impunity by making sure “the perpetrators are first to arrive on the crime scene.”
Negros Island in central Philippines is the country’s sugar bowl, with its farmers producing over two-thirds of the national supply. It is also one of the Philippines’ poorest areas, with about one in four people living on less than a dollar a day. During the 1980s, it endured a severe famine. Powerful sugar barons own around 80 percent of agricultural lands with farmers making just under a dollar for a day’s work, according to a tally by the Ibon Foundation, a local think-tank.
Longstanding land rights struggles persist on the island. In response, the authorities have struck swiftly. Since 1985, at least five high-profile massacres of farmers and activists have been documented on Negros Island. Human rights groups have flagged the area as one of the most dangerous for dissenters.
Negros is as sweet as it is bloody. With this latest incident, it has earned the dark title as the Philippines’ “massacre capital.”
Harvested sugar cane lies in the fields of Toboso, Negros Occidental province. Photo by Michael Beltran.
Differing Accounts
According to the 79th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), soldiers launched their attack a little before 4 a.m. on April 19. The troops attacked based on “verified reports” and conducted the operation with “established rules of engagement and full regard for civilian safety.”
Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson came to the defense of the military, saying the operation was a “legitimate encounter.” The governor hails from a family of prominent sugar barons.
The fact-finding mission, however, has revealed an anomaly in the processing of evidence. The military evacuated local residents from April 19 to 22. That means, soldiers were left with sole access to the site in Sitio Plaringding where the 19 bodies were found, making a detailed reconstruction of events practically impossible.
“Is this the only crime scene, or are there other areas where the 19 were killed?” asked Conti. Human rights groups flagged the strong possibility of tampering with evidence and staging of the scene to make it look as if all of the victims were part of an encounter that ended in the same spot.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is also conducting an ongoing probe into the incident.
The Diplomat spoke with seven local farmers in Salamanca. All of them acknowledged Alano, Ledesma, Sorem, Prijoles, Wendel, and Santuyo as community researchers known to frequent the far-flung sugar field town.
Lawyer Sol Taule of the national human rights group Karapatan said that contrary to the military’s claims, “we confirmed that these people were not combatants, in fact they were known here to be helping farmers regarding land disputes.”
The AFP said that it conducted evidence-retrieval and clearing operations and found that Ledesma, specifically, had been armed. However, the recent fact-finding mission also documented object evidence at the scene, suggesting the military’s sweep was not as thorough as claimed.
“RJ was always very nice,” said a sugar worker, 43, of the slain journalist. “Sometimes, we’d see him in other cities at different events in the city too.”
Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun examined five bodies from Toboso. She said that for a more conclusive analysis, she’d need to see at least 13 cadavers, but some had already been cremated.
She also said that the bodies had already severely decomposed having been left in water for some time. Some came only wrapped in plastic.
“A lot of questions on recovery, the handling and the disposition,” she told reporters.
According to Fortun, at least one victim bled out from a gunshot wound. It’s possible they were denied medical care.
“Why are the wounds in the back if it was a confrontation?” Fortun asked in Filipino.
The recent fact-finding mission documented object evidence at the scene, suggesting the military’s sweep was not as thorough as claimed. Photo by Michael Beltran.
Continuing Terror
“Get out! Get out now!” yelled soldiers while banging the butt of their rifles on the door of one of Salamanca’s farmers just hours after locals had been deafened by gunfire.
“’Sir we’re just civilians,’ we told the soldiers. But they kept banging and ordering us to come out,” one local told The Diplomat. The same farmer, already approaching her senior years, said that when she and her family stepped out of their home, soldiers searched the inside for anyone seeking refuge.
When they found nobody, “they pointed a rifle at my husband’s back, asking him for information.”
The mission says that soldiers visited at least 18 houses in their search. Karapatan shared that during their investigation, through corroborated eyewitness accounts, they found evidence of forcible use of civilian homes as military encampments, harassment and intimidation of residents in the name of counter-insurgency, restrictions on farming activities, and indiscriminate firing near homes.
State actors inflicting violence on a civilian populace, despite invoking national security, still count as a violation of international humanitarian law including the Geneva Conventions and domestic laws.
In light of the killings, the CHR reminded that “Parties must distinguish between combatants/fighters and civilians/civilians objects. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited, and civilians are protected unless they directly participate in hostilities.”
Debbie*, 22, sat with her five siblings and parents in the corner of their small wooden shack when the shelling began before sunrise last April. She shivered throughout, recounting the memory in tears, as if learning in a moment of vulnerability exactly what trauma means.
“Every time I see soldiers, I get scared,” she said.
At least two of the locals The Diplomat interviewed said that before, during and after the military operation, four to six drones circled the area and even followed some people to the fields. One farmer likened them to “a small helicopter or a big bee.”
Debbie’s father, who cut bamboo for a living, was too afraid to leave the house for too long and encounter patrolling soldiers.
“My dad said we might go back next month. But it’s been hard, without work, we can’t afford to buy rice,” she said.
The CHR has yet to conclude its investigation. However, Karapatan said it is looking into the possibility of filing charges against the military, seeking accountability and justice for the slain 19 and the continuing militarization among sugar workers.
A tree near the sugar fields and farmers homes is peppered with bullets. Photo by Michael Beltran.
*Name changed. For their safety, none of the farmers that spoke with The Diplomat agreed to have their real names published.
