By CESAR JOLITO III

The New People’s Army (NPA) has claimed responsibility for the killing of a 56-year-old woman in Negros Occidental’s Kabankalan City, an incident that police said bore the hallmarks of an execution-style attack.

In a statement, a unit of the NPA’s Armando Sumayang Jr. Command (ASJC) said its fighters carried out what it described as a “punitive action” against Virginia Salmorin (also identified by the group as Virginia Salmorenante) on Saturday, December 20, at Barangay Camansi’s Sitio Fabrica.

According to the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, Salmorin, the manager of SPED X Quarry, was inside her store when two unidentified suspects arrived and posed as customers.

As Salmorin attended to them, she was shot multiple times with an unidentified caliber firearm, sustaining fatal gunshot wounds to the head and underarm.

Police said the suspects fled on foot toward Sitio Makilo after the shooting.

Recovered at the crime scene were seven fired cartridges, one slug and one live round of ammunition.

A manhunt operation is ongoing as authorities work to identify and arrest the perpetrators.

In its statement, the ASJC owned up to the killing, alleging that Salmorin was a local intelligence asset of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The rebel group claimed that Salmorin, along with Alberto Jimenez, provided intelligence that led to the November 30, 2022 deaths of peasant organizer Joseph Jimenez and National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultant Ericson Acosta in Sitio Makilo.

The rebel group asserted that the killings were acts of what it calls “revolutionary justice” and warned other alleged military assets in the region to surrender to the nearest NPA unit./CJ, WDJ