Military ops continue under Covid-19 quarantine in North Negros
Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates
April 17, 2020
Civilians in North Negros continue to fear combat operations of combined forces of the 79th Infantry Battalion (79th IB) and the Special Action Forces (SAF) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) even as the whole province of Negros Occidental came under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) to control the Covid-19 pandemic.
Based on initial reports gathered by the Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (NNAHRA), military operations have continued in rural areas of Escalante City, Calatrava and Toboso despite the province-wide implementation of the ECQ.
In Toboso town, the home of Quintin Palay and other members of the Palay clan in Sitio Odiong, Barangay Bandila was forcibly entered and ransacked by elements of the 79th IB and SAF last April 15, around 6:30 in the morning.
The military threatened and interrogated a 12-year old minor who was in the house while other family members were out working in their monggo fields. The child reportedly fainted due to intense pressure.
The particular combat operation had been going on for several days in the upland areas of Barangay Pantao and Bandila, where the soldiers also engaged in betting and cockfighting. The soldiers who ransacked the Palay home were reportedly in civilian clothes. Other soldiers nearby were busy gambling.
This April, combat operations were also monitored in upland barangays of Marcelo, Minapasuk, Cambayubo, Winaswasan, Macasilao, Cruz, Malatas, Pantao and Paghumayan in Calatrava; Bug-ang, San Isidro, Bandila and Tabun-ac in Toboso, and many other barangays in Escalante City where the so-called National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict of the Duterte administration (NTF-ELCAC) continue to engage in their rabid campaign to force ordinary civilians and peasants to surrender en masse and admit to their links to the armed communist movement.
Particularly in Barangay Bug-ang, Toboso and Barangay Malasibog, Escalante City, operators of the NTF-ELCAC continue to coerce peasants to break up their cooperatives and surrender their lands back to landlords and corrupt brokers of anomalous financial grants endorsed by the military.
Meanwhile, there are also reports of abuses in Covid-19 checkpoints where personal belongings of civilians are searched and intensely inspected by police and military personnel without protective gear, while some civilians are ordered to remove their face masks to identify them. Authorities have also been arresting so many civilians who break the curfew and other additional restrictions of the quarantine implemented by local governments.
NNAHRA noted that while civilians are strictly barred from crossing town and city borders to avoid the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the army and police on combat operations can freely enter quarantined barangays without any personal protective gear and without notifying local officials of their activities.
Human rights advocates call on authorities to seriously address the Covid-19 situation and pull-out military troops from communities. Aside from causing abuses and rights violations, the unhampered movement of police and military personnel can potentially unleash the outbreak of the virus in upland areas where health services are scarce, if not completely unavailable.
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