Negros Island is the epicenter of spy-tagging killings of civilians perpetrated by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front, a National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) official said Tuesday, May 26..
From 2021 to May 2026, at least 59 documented spy-tagging killings and summary executions have been recorded across the country. Of these, 51 victims were killed in the Negros Island Region—consisting of 41 in Negros Occidental and 10 in Negros Oriental. Undersecretary Ernesto Torres Jr., NTF-ELCAC executive director, said in a press statement.
Torres called on Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to fulfill its universal mandate, demand accountability, and investigate these executions rather than allowing them to disappear beneath propaganda.
“The CHR must…demonstrate equal resolve in condemning and investigating these executions. Human rights are not exclusive to armed rebels, activists, or ideological allies. Human rights belong equally to poor farmers, church workers, tricycle drivers, laborers, former rebels, barangay officials, and ordinary civilians murdered in remote communities,” he said.
Torres said data shows that out of the 51 civilians killed by the New People’s Army (NPA) in Negros over the past five years, 49 were murdered from January 2025 to May 2026 alone. This includes 39 victims in Negros Occidental and 10 victims in Negros Oriental, he said.
Nearly nine out of every ten victims recorded nationwide from 2025 to the present were killed in Negros.
Torres said the victims were accused of being “informants” or condemned by “kangaroo courts.”
The current list does not include more than 20 other reported cases involving civilians and government troops whose details are still being collated and validated. In all, the victims may reach 85 in Negros alone and nearly 90 nationwide during the period, the NTF-ELCAC said.
The victims include farmers, laborers, tricycle drivers, barangay tanods, church workers, former rebels, indigenous peoples leaders, former Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) members, former barangay officials, senior citizens, and ordinary civilians, it said.
Among killed were Jimmy Himay in Southern Leyte in 2021; Councilor Dennis Sadagnot in Negros Oriental in 2024; forest guard Elberto Ancero, barangay tanod Efren Solinap, farmer Rickne Daipal, habal-habal driver Jury Gane, and dried fish vendor Elias Palay in 2025; as well as church worker Rey Norquiana, 72-year-old former barangay official Rodulfo Fajardo, farmer Jemar Mahusay, and former rebel Joseph Agustin in 2026, the NTF-ELCAC said.
Killed this year was 74-year-old Lola Leonora Anguit, a civilian resident of Barangay Tapi, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental.
She was summarily executed on February 3 after being accused of being an “informant,” a killing claimed by the Armando Sumayang Jr. Command (ASJC) of the NPA, the NTF-ELCAC added.
Following an April 19, 2026 encounter in Toboso, four more civilians were killed in Negros Occidental:
- Lindio Alvino, 42, murdered on April 22 in Sipalay City;.
- Jemar Mahusay, 53, executed on May 5, in Calatrava;
- Gerry Baitan, 53, Killed on May 13 in Calatrava; and
- Joseph Agustin , 38, slain on May 19 in Binalbagan.
The killings reveals a systematic machinery of terror intended to preserve the shrinking influence of the armed movement as it faces operational and political defeats, Torres said.
He criticized front organizations of the rebel movement for remaining silent when ordinary civilians are executed, while loudly invoking human rights whenever armed rebels are neutralized during legitimate encounters.*
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