(Eagle News)–Leftist lawmakers on Sunday, March 31, slammed the killing of 14 people in Negros Oriental in separate police operations on Saturday, March 30.
“The state-sanctioned terror act should be condemned by all sectors as [President Rodrigo] Duterte and his warmonger minions are hell bent to impose martial rule in a nationwide scale,” Anakpawis partlyist Rep. Ariel Casilao said, saying the President’s Memorandum Circular 32 which sought to increase troops in provinces where there is perceived lawlessness served as a “death warrant” to civilians.
For Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate, “state forces are on a rampage and activists and critics are in their crosshairs.”
ACT Rep. France Castro agreed, saying the killings follow the “rulebook of targeting civilians and innocents under the so-called Oplan Kapayapaan as well as tokhang and other bloody operations which the Duterte administration is waging against the people.”
“We will not take this sitting down and we will seek justice for the victims and file charges against the policemen and their superiors who perpetrated this massacre,” Zarate said.
Apart from the 14 killed, 12 were arrested in the police operations held on Saturday, March 30.
Police said they seized firearms, subversive documents and ammo, among other, during the operations.