The massacre took place in recent days in a region where the communist insurgency has been fighting the Philippine state for decades. The Faustos had been in the crosshairs of the local authorities for some time. Several farmers’ associations were forced to sign a letter distancing themselves from the Communist Party.
Manila () – Four members of a family of farmers who cultivated sugar cane, active in the local farmers’ association, the Baclayan, Bito, Cabagal Farmers and Farmworkers Association, were shot dead. According to human rights defenders, it was a murder carried out by the Philippine military, which arbitrarily accused the farmers of being affiliated with the communist insurgency.
Parents Roly and Emelda Fausto, aged 52 and 50 respectively, and their sons Ben, 15, and Ravin, 11, lived in the city of Himamaylan, Negros Occidental province, and were massacred on June 14. According to police investigations, they were killed with M16 type weapons, of which 54 cartridges were found.
Although some neighbors had heard shots around 10 in the morning, they did not raise the alarm. The one who found their bodies the next day was his daughter, who lives nearby.
According to the website report rapper and local testimonies, the Faustos – who belonged to the Iglesia Filipino Independiente, a religious denomination suspected of subversive activities by the authorities – had been under scrutiny for some time: they had been registered as rebels, subjected to pressure and searches without a warrant, and even tortured. They had also recently reported the entry of strangers into their home.
This incursion, denounced in mid-May, had occurred after a confrontation between the military and presumed rebels near the town of Kabankalan. Thousands of residents of the surrounding rural areas were forced to flee, while two soldiers were wounded and a suspected communist rebel, a farmer named Crispin Tingal Jr., was killed.
This is not a new situation on the island of Negros, a land that during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (1972-1986), father of the current president, witnessed thousands of deaths and disappearances, and that since the 1970s has witnessed of the communist rebellion against the government.
The human rights organizations pointed to the 94th infantry brigade as responsible for the Fausto massacre, which for months has been leading a campaign of terror, which this year began on January 9 with the kidnapping and murder -supposedly at the hands of the army – of a farmer named José Gonzales. For its part, the Armed Forces of the Philippines affirm that it was the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, that killed the Fausto family.
In fact, five peasant organizations had already denounced that they had been forced to send a letter of resignation to the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army. Later, according to the peasants’ denunciations, elements of the 94th Battalion would have pressured the leaders of these associations to disseminate the communiqué.
Human rights defenders consider the Fausto massacre to be a direct consequence of these events. The president of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, Peter Murphy, called for justice for the victims and reminded the current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of his commitment to annul the laws that place some areas of the archipelago under de facto martial law. During his presidency, which began a year ago, in Negros alone, 24 peasants died at the hands of the security forces.
Photo: HIMAMAYLAN CITY POLICE STATION
