The Negros chapter of the National Democratic Front (NDF) condemned “in the strongest terms” the recent ambush of a fact-finding team for the Central Visayas chapter of Karapatan, an alliance of human rights organizations, which left two dead in Barangay Nangka, Bayawan City, Negros Oriental.

In a statement released by NDF-Negros spokesperson Ka Frank Fernandez, he said what made the killings “several-folds revolting” is because the group was in the process of concluding a three-day fact-finding mission investigating the struggle for land in Negros Oriental.

Fernandez blamed the Philippine Army 303rd Infantry Brigade (303 IB), claiming they violated the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1998 GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).

However, following the incident, a statement by Karapatan-Central Visayas member Fritzie Bamollino said the group was investigating claims local farmers were being harassed by armed groups.

Bamollino accused Bayawan City Mayor Rene Gaudiel, Sr. of being behind the attack, claiming it was his “armed goons” harassing the farmers.

Fernandez also said President Rodrigo Duterte has “clearly gone berserk,” calling his Oplan: Kapayapaan as “ intensifying the Marcosian model of cowardly assassinating instead the leaders and members of unarmed legal progressive organizations.”

The plan was adopted at the beginning of the year as the Armed Forces of the Philippines plans for peace and nation-building under the Duterte administration./DGB, WDJ