Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez (Neg. Occ., 3rd District) on Sunday, May 10, said he will not push forward with his call for a Congressional inquiry into the Toboso encounters that left 19 dead.
“Multiple investigations are now underway by the proper authorities, including the Commission on Human Rights and the relevant agencies of government. The right course is to let these processes run their full course without political interference,” he said.
“Justice is best served by institutions doing their work, not by Congress getting ahead of them,” he said.
Benitez echoed Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson’s appeal to the remaining armed rebels to lay down their arms and return to the fold of the law while there is still time.
“The era of violence must end,” Benitez said.
“And as we move toward lasting peace, we must listen not to extremist propaganda, but to the people of Negros themselves — because they, more than anyone else, have earned the right to define the future of their province,” he said.
The Army has said that the April 19 encounters between the 79th Infantry Battalion and the New People’s Army in Barangay Salamanca, Toboso, left 19 alleged NPA members dead.
However, militant and human rights groups maintain that some of the dead were civilians who were non-combatants.
“Whatever the circumstances, every one of those lives mattered. As a Negrosanon and as a public servant, I grieve with the families left behind,” Benitez said.
At the same time, he said he commends the men and women of the 79th Infantry Battalion, the 3rd Infantry Division, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines for their service across Negros, and the barangay officials and community members whose vigilance and cooperation make that service possible.
“They put themselves in harm’s way to protect our communities from a decades-old insurgency that has cost too many lives, displaced too many families, and stunted too much potential in our countryside. The work is hard and dangerous. The people of Negros know it,” he said.
Those who live in our barangays understand the true situation on the ground, he said.
“The insurgency in Negros is not an abstraction debated in Manila or argued about online. It is a daily reality our farmers, teachers, and local officials live with. It is felt in fear, in displacement, in lost school days, in stalled livelihoods,” he said.
“To the students, journalists, and researchers who come to Negros to study, document, and serve our communities, your work matters and you are welcome here,” he said, but coordinate with “your academic institutions, the barangay, and the LGU”.
“Coordination is a layer of safety. It is not a constraint on your work. We want you to be able to do what you came to do, and to go home safely,” he said.
Benitez said peace in Negros will not be won by force alone.
“Our people need two things in equal measure: protection and new sources of livelihood. Where there is no opportunity, despair grows. And despair is what the insurgency feeds on. We have seen this pattern across generations,” he said.
The work ahead, in Congress and in our district, is to keep pushing for both, he said.
“Stronger security where it is needed. And serious investment in agriculture, tourism, creative industries, and education—the things that give our young people a real future and leave no opening for any movement that promises them otherwise,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on Sunday welcomed the statement of the governor that the Toboso encounter was a legitimate operation.
“The governor’s declaration carries profound weight because it comes from the highest elected official of Negros Occidental himself — a leader who knows the realities on the ground, understands the sentiments of genuine Negrenses, and has long witnessed the devastating impact of communist terrorism on the province,” it said.
Lacson’s statement is the strongest repudiation yet of the propaganda, distortions, and manufactured narratives being aggressively floated by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front and its front organizations following the encounter in Barangay Salamanca, it added.
“Groups and ideological operators outside Negros are in no position to hijack the sentiments of genuine Negrenses or distort the realities on the ground,” it added.*
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