Progressive groups in Negros Occidental have expressed outrage following the appointment of Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas, who violated quarantine measures for his “mañanita” birthday party amid the COVID-19 lockdown, as the new Philippine National Police chief.
“The Negrosanons are in rage on the promotion of Sinas as the new PNP Chief,” Clarizza Singson, secretary-general of the human rights group Karapatan in Negros Island. She said the bloody nights of December 27 to 29, 2018 are still fresh in the memories of the Negrosanons. Six people were killed and 26 others arrested for alleged possession of firearms and explosives.
According to eyewitness’ accounts, in the early morning of December 27, 20 to 30 men in uniform entered the houses of the victims in Negros Oriental and forced everyone out, except for the suspects, she said, adding that relatives then heard shots then found the victims dead with firearms and grenades planted near their bodies.
She also pointed out that three months after, in March 2019, another police operation in Negros Oriental took 14 lives in just one night.
Those who were brutally killed during these operations are members of Kaugmaon-KMP, a national peasant’s organization, and some members of PISTON, a national organization of drivers, the progressive groups claimed.
BAYAN Negros spokesperson Ereneo Longinos said, “Sinas practically made Negros the killing fields of peasants, and the government is surreptitiously using court processes by securing search warrants and warrants of arrests to legitimize these violations.”
He added, “the police under Sinas mastered the art of planting evidence, firearms and explosives, to justify their mass murder of peasants and activists on the island.”
Sinas’ promotion and appointment to the highest post in the PNP will intensify the already worsened condition of human rights in the country, he said.
He claimed, “Sinas has yet to answer for all the blood of the farmers and activists murdered by his men.”*