NDF-Negros is gaslighting the public in favor of NPA’s extra-judicial killings

April 06, 2026

Unfortunately, the impassioned defense of National Democratic Front in Negros of the more than 40 extra-judicial killings perpetrated by the New People’s Army since 2025 revealed more about the practice of spy-tagging than it intended to conceal.

In attempting to dismiss spy-tagging as a fabrication, NDF-Negros inadvertently described the very process it sought to deny. It explained how individuals suspected of being government informants were subjected to “investigation,” how accusations were “triangulated,” and how those deemed guilty may face punishment under what it called “revolutionary justice.”

There lies precisely the problem. When a civilian is labeled a “spy,” when that accusation is circulated within communities, and when punishment is carried out by an armed group operating outside the Philippine legal system, the reality experienced by ordinary people does not change simply because a different term is used. Communities across the country have long understood what happens next: intimidation, coercion, and in many tragic cases, execution. Calling this process “revolutionary justice” does not make it justice because it merely attempts to wrap violence in ideological language.

To be clear, the Geneva Conventions also do not authorize armed groups to conduct secret investigations, pronounce guilt, and execute civilians without transparent proceedings or recognized judicial safeguards. Even in armed conflict, individuals accused of espionage or other offenses are entitled to due process before a regularly constituted court that respects fundamental guarantees of fairness.

What the NDF describes is not such a system. It is an internal mechanism where the accuser, investigator, judge, and executioner belong to the same armed organization. To portray such a system as compliant with humanitarian law is not a legal argument but an attempt to legitimize violence through rhetoric.

More fundamentally, the premise underlying the statement must be rejected outright. The Philippines has only one legitimate government: the Republic of the Philippines. And it has only one system of law that governs the country: the rule of law established by the Constitution.

No armed group, political party, or self-proclaimed revolutionary authority has the legal power to arrest, try, or execute civilians outside that constitutional framework. Justice in a democratic society does not come from the “barrel of a gun” or from the highly questionable verdict of a clandestine committee. It comes from courts of law that operate under the Constitution and are bound by due process and the protection of human rights.

We reiterate our commendation of the Commission on Human Rights for its unambiguous condemnation of the NPA’s killing of 74-year-old Leonora “Leonor” Anguit of Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental. The Commission’s statement affirms an important principle that human rights protection must extend to all victims of violence, regardless of who the perpetrators are.

While more than forty civilians have been killed by the NPA in Negros Island over the past two years, the Filipino people have heard no condemnation from some of the same groups that loudly claim the mantle of human rights advocacy. This silence stands in stark contrast to their swift mobilization when it comes to demanding custody of young women who were recruited into the armed movement in Mindoro.

Human rights cannot be selective. The lives of farmers, elders, and ordinary civilians, who have been branded—without proof—as “spies” and killed under the guise of so-called revolutionary justice, deserve the same protection and outrage.

Any killing carried out under this label of “revolutionary justice,” therefore, is an execution outside the rule of law. It is murder, plain and simple, and no amount of gaslighting can defend it.

Usec. Ernesto C. Torres Jr.

Executive Director, NTF‑ELCAC