Bagong Alyansang Makabayan likens Gibo Teodoro’s defense of the massacre committed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Toboso, Negros Occidental to the Tokhang propaganda of the Rodrigo Duterte administration.
During the bloody “war on drugs,” Duterte and his subordinates insisted that those killed by the police were drug lords and drug pushers, despite the countless deaths of innocent civilians in urban poor communities. This is similar to the narrative of Teodoro and the AFP denying the deaths of civilians and the atrocities perpetrated by state troops in Negros.
Teodoro exposed himself as an enabler of state terrorism by rejecting the demand to conduct an impartial and credible investigation into the incident, and his outright dismissal of the fact-finding mission report by human rights organizations.
Bayan said that Teodoro will face accountability not just for his rabid collusion with the military to repudiate the significance of resuming the peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF, but also his incriminating role in covering up the horrific crimes of the AFP in Negros, and the brutal enforcement of the US-backed counterinsurgency program.
Teodoro and the Marcos Jr administration should remember that Duterte displayed the same arrogance as a tyrant who unleashed bloodshed during his 6-year reign, but is now languishing in detention in The Hague and facing trial for crimes against humanity.
Bayan calls on the people to continue pursuing the demand for justice for the Negros 19 and other victims of extrajudicial killings; and to hold Teodoro, Marcos Jr, and AFP officials accountable for war crimes, subservience to the dictates of US imperialism, and state terrorism.