CPP/NPA-Central Negros: 62nd IB murdered Randy Tapales in fake encounter

Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Jul 8, 2021): 62nd IB murdered Randy Tapales in fake encounter

JB REGALADO

SPOKESPERSON

NPA-CENTRAL NEGROS (LEONARDO PANALIGAN COMMAND)

NEGROS ISLAND REGIONAL OPERATIONAL COMMAND (APOLINARIO GATMAITAN COMMAND)

NEW PEOPLE'S ARMY

JULY 08, 2021

The Leonardo Panaligan Command of the New People’s Army Central Negros Guerrilla Front (LPC-NPA) expressed utmost outrage over another farmer killed by soldiers of the 62nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (62nd IB) in a fake encounter the military invented.

Brig. Gen. Inocencio Pasaporte, commander of the 303rd Infantry Brigade, told the media through a statement that a five minute encounter between the NPA and 62nd IB in Sitio Pitik-Pitik, Barangay Luz, Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental last July 4 resulted to the death of Randy Tapales, allegedly an NPA rebel.

However, the LPC-NPA debunked Pasaporte saying that Tapales, single and a resident of Sitio Hinobaan, Barangay Luz, was walking alone on his way home when he was ambushed by the military.

“It is not true that there was an encounter between NPA and military troops around this time and, also, Tapales was not an NPA fighter,” said Ka JB Regalado, LPC-NPA spokesperson.

According to Regalado, before Tapales was murdered, he was subjected to death threats and red-tagging along with other youths in their Barangay, “they were accused of being supporters or members of the NPA which forced them to hide and leave their homes.”

The LPC-NPA strongly condemned as well the conduct of Tapales’ burial wherein the fascist military troops deprived his family access to his dead body even when they pleaded to be allowed to bring his remains home for a wake.

Regalado said that the military “wanted to deny the real situation of the victim whose head was almost separated from his body after being peppered by bullets.”

“This kind of killing done by murderous soldiers to a civilian is unjust causing terror and much concern of farmers and ordinary civilians for their security and livelihood,” he said.

Regalado maintained that instead of responding to existing problems such as poverty and the crisis brought about by the pandemic, the fascist US-China-Duterte regime is spreading tyranny to silence the people and make them kneel to Duterte.

The LPC-NPA promised to make the fascist Duterte regime feel its strength and wrath, and together with the broad oppressed and exploited masses conveyed its sorrow, anger and sympathies not only to the brutal murder of Randy Tapales but also to all victims of extrajudicial killings and other forms of violations of democratic rights under the oppressive Anti-terror Law and the corrupt National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.###

https://cpp.ph/statements/62nd-ib-murdered-randy-tapales-in-fake-encounter/