Philippine anti-communist task force calls for U.N. probe into 98 civilian killings and summary executions it attributes to communist rebels

PHILIPPINES

The Philippine government's body for countering the communist insurgency, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), called on the United Nations (U.N.) and international human rights bodies at a FAQCheck news conference on Oct. 19 (local time) to investigate 98 killings and summary executions of civilians. NTF-ELCAC attributes the cases to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF). NTF-ELCAC said 90 of the 98 cases occurred on Negros Island. The state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported on the news conference at 6:39 p.m. (Philippine time) that day.

NTF-ELCAC says it documented 98 cases from 2021 through October this year

The person who spoke at the news conference was lawyer Liza Fidelis Cañada, spokesperson and director for stakeholder engagement of the NTF-ELCAC National Secretariat. Cañada said 98 cases of murder and summary execution apparently committed by the CPP-NPA-NDF were documented from 2021 through October 2026. The figure of 98 was presented by NTF-ELCAC, and the PNA article does not say who documented the cases or by what method.

By year, there were three cases in 2021, three in 2022, 21 in 2024 and 37 in 2025. This year, 34 cases were documented from January through October. No figure was given for 2023. With 92 cases documented from 2024 through October this year, most of the cases are concentrated in the last three years.

Count rises from 59 in May to 98 in five months

The NTF-ELCAC National Secretariat said in a May 26 statement issued in the name of then-Executive Director Ernesto C. Torres Jr. that it had documented at least 59 "spy-tagging" killings and summary executions from 2021 through May 2026. It said 51 of these occurred in the Negros Island Region, with 41 in Negros Occidental and 10 in Negros Oriental. According to that statement, 49 of the 51 cases occurred between January 2025 and May 2026.

In the same statement, NTF-ELCAC said it was compiling and verifying more than 20 additional cases involving civilians and government forces, and that the total could reach about 85 in Negros and nearly 90 nationwide. The 98 cases nationwide and 90 in Negros disclosed on Oct. 19 exceed those projections.

On Sept. 1, a delegation led by Undersecretary Danilo G. Pamonag, executive director of the NTF-ELCAC National Secretariat, briefed Signe Poulsen, senior human rights adviser of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), on 71 cases of arbitrary killings and human rights violations by the CPP-NPA documented by the National Secretariat since January 2025, NTF-ELCAC said. According to NTF-ELCAC, Poulsen received the materials and promised to forward them to the appropriate international human rights mechanisms. Pamonag said at the meeting, "There can be no selective application of human rights."

In Negros, an elderly woman in her 70s, farmers and a former rebel were killed one after another, task force says

NTF-ELCAC named individual victims in its May statement. On Feb. 3, Leonora Anguit, 74, of Barangay Tapi in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, was killed, and the NPA's "Armando Sumayang Jr. Command" (ASJC) admitted to the killing, NTF-ELCAC said. NTF-ELCAC said, "Lola Leonora was not killed in combat. She was not an armed fighter."

NTF-ELCAC said killings followed a clash in Toboso on April 19. Lindio Alvino, 42, was killed in Sipalay City on April 22; farmer Jemar Mahusay, 53, in Calatrava on May 5; farmer Gerry Baitan, 53, also in Calatrava on May 13; and former rebel Joseph Agustin, 38, in Binalbagan on May 19. All four places are in Negros Occidental. The statement also listed church worker Rey Norquiana and 72-year-old former barangay official Rodulfo Fajardo as victims in 2026.

Killings in Negros were also an issue in 2024. Brig. Gen. Orlando Edralin, commander of the Philippine Army's 303rd Infantry Brigade, said in a statement on May 13, 2024, that at least eight civilians had been killed in several remote villages in Negros Occidental between the second week of April and the first week of May that year. According to the PNA article, the NPA identified the victims as "military agents" in its own press release. Edralin said the killings were "not only abhorrent but also a gross violation of human rights and the principles of humanity."

Spokesperson Cañada calls them murders, saying "a mere accusation of being a spy has become a death sentence"

The victims identified by NTF-ELCAC are farmers, workers, women, the elderly, barangay officials, "community peacekeepers" and former rebels who laid down their arms and returned to society. Cañada said many of the victims had been branded government informants or "spies" before they were killed. NTF-ELCAC alleges that this was done "without any lawful judicial process."

Cañada said, "A mere accusation of being a spy has become a death sentence." Cañada called it "murder masquerading as revolutionary discipline," saying, "These are not revolutionary acts. These are murders."

NTF-ELCAC demanded an immediate halt to all targeted killings. Cañada claimed that such violence reveals the "growing desperation" of remnants of the CPP-NPA-NDF. The PNA article said the decline in these groups' influence has coincided with the expansion of peace, public services and development opportunities.

NTF-ELCAC made four requests to the U.N. and international bodies: an independent investigation into the 98 cases, preservation of evidence, identification of those who ordered or carried out the killings, and criminal proceedings against those responsible. NTF-ELCAC also urged human rights groups and other sectors in the Philippines to support an impartial investigation. Cañada said, "Ninety-eight documented incidents demand 98 answers." In its May statement, NTF-ELCAC had called on the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines to "act with dispatch."

Republic Act No. 9851 defines executions without trial as war crimes and sets no statute of limitations

Cañada cited Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions as the legal basis and said Additional Protocol II also applies where relevant. According to the text of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 posted by OHCHR, Article 3, paragraph 1, subparagraph (a) prohibits "Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds," and subparagraph (d) prohibits the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions "without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court."

Philippine Republic Act No. 9851, cited by Cañada, is the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity, approved on Dec. 11, 2009. Section 4(b) of the text, published in the Supreme Court E-Library, defines as war crimes serious violations of Common Article 3 committed in a non-international armed conflict against "persons taking no active part in the hostilities." Item 1 of the same subsection lists violence to life and person, including "willful killings," and item 4 lists "The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment."

Section 3(c) of the same law, in defining armed conflict, treats "protracted armed violence" between governmental authorities and organized armed groups as a non-international armed conflict. It does not include internal disturbances such as riots or "isolated and sporadic acts of violence." Cañada added the caveat at the news conference that the legal elements and individual criminal responsibility must be examined to establish war crimes.

Section 7 provides for reclusion temporal in its medium to maximum period and a fine of 100,000 to 500,000 pesos upon conviction. In cases of extreme gravity, such as where the offense results in death or serious injury, it imposes reclusion perpetua and a fine of 500,000 to 1 million pesos. Section 10 punishes "as a principal" superiors who knew or should have known of crimes by subordinates and failed to prevent them, and Section 11 provides that crimes under the law are not subject to prescription. At the news conference, NTF-ELCAC asked that not only the perpetrators but also those who "ordered" the killings be identified.