MANILA, Philippines — The Palace on Monday condemned the killing of nine sugar workers in a hacienda in Sagay City, Negros Occidental on Saturday night, as it called their murder a cruel act.
"Families of the victims of this cruel act can count on the government that it will enforce the full wrath of the law against its perpetrators," presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo also said on his Twitter account.
On the death of Negros Workers pic.twitter.com/hXXEz8u6Fx
— Salvador Panelo (@SecretaryPanelo) October 21, 2018
The nine were reportedly killed by a group of around 40 men who shot at them while they were resting in a makeshift tent in Hacienda Nene in Purok Firetree, in Barangay Bulanon on Saturday night.
Some of the victims were shot in the head, as police investigators aired suspicions that they were shot from a distance. The bodies of three of the victims were allegedly burned, regional police said.
Members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers had conducted a "bungkalan", or land cultivation, in the lot after the owner had finished harvesting sugarcane.
The group explained Sunday that the bungkalan is their "response to resonate our campaign for genuine agrarian reform and free land distribution." During a 'bungkalan',"[f]armers militantly occupy idle lands and collectively cultivate these lands in order to make it productive," the group said.
"'Bungkalan' reflects the failure of the government’s land reform program and the landlords’ refusal to distribute land to the tillers," it also said.
Negros Island has the biggest balance of undistributed landholdings in the country, according to a report on state-run Philippine News Agency in August 2017.
At the time, there were 89,794 hectares of land that had yet to be distributed. The Department of Agrarian Reform hoped to distribute 12,392 hectares of that land that year.
Police eye person of interest; groups seek independent probe
Police already have a person of interest in the murder, Chief Inspector Roberto Mansueto, city police chief said in a radio interview on Monday. He said on DZMM TeleRadyo that the person of interest, not yet a suspect, is a former worker of Hacienda Nene.
Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. has offered a P250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the people behind the killings while Sagay City Mayor Mayor Alfredo Marañon III and the city government offered another P250,000 reward.
But NFSW and the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura are asking for an independent investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation, Commission on Human Rights, and civil society groups.
"We fear that the PNP is whitewashing the case, because Sagay police Chief Inspector Roberto Mansueto has said to the press that at least two of the victims may have fired back at their attackers, supposedly because there were spent pistol and shotgun casings in the area," the groups said in a press statement on Monday.
The group has pointed to "red tagging" by the military of farmers who engage in 'bungkalan'.
"Besides General Eliezer Losañes of the 303rd [Infantry Brigade]'s announcement on April 20, 2018 that land cultivation areas in Negros are New People’s Army rebels' communal farms, the military has also stated that these are also part of the Red October plot of the [Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army]," the groups said.
Losañes is quoted in a report in The Freeman in April saying 'bungkalan' areas "were used for CPP-NPA-NDF related activities such as meetings, education and trainings of masses and consolidation area of logistics and resources in support to the armed group (NPA)."