The Philippine Army’s 79th Infantry Battalion (IB) assailed the New People’s Army (NPA) yesterday for killing businessman Juvinie Sarona in Negros Occidental’s Toboso town last Tuesday, January 2.

“It’s an arrogant and shameless admission,” said Captain Dan Carlo Samoza, civil-military operations officer of 79IB led by Lt. Colonel Arnel Calaoagan, in a statement after the NPA’s Roselyn Jean Pelle Command (RJPC) confirmed to the local media that they ambushed Sarona and torched a tractor that belonged to his father.

The RJPC’s Northern Negros Front was declared dismantled by the 79IB, but its remnants are still operating in some areas in the north.

It claimed that Sarona, 43 years old, was involved in the massacre that claimed the lives of nine sugarcane farm workers in Sagay City in 2018.

However, the Toboso Municipal Police Station reported that Sarona has no criminal records, but was instead a well-known supporter of peace efforts in the locality.

In a media interview, Major Jun Ray Batadlan, town police chief, said they identified 15 NPA rebels as the perpetrators and would soon file charges against them.

The group of armed men gunned down Sarona at his residence in Barangay Bug-ang on the night of January 2, police report showed. (PNA)