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Tribal leader decries 'unabated NPA slaughter' of IPs in Surigao

By Alexander Lopez

September 22, 2022, 3:53 pm

<p><strong>KILLING CONTINUES.</strong> A member of the Manobo tribe, Joel Meniano, is gunned down by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels on Wednesday (Sept. 21, 2022) in the hinterlands of Barangay Calatngan, San Miguel, Surigao del Sur. Meniano is the second Manobo tribe member allegedly killed by the NPA rebels this month.<em> (Photo courtesy of Datu Rico Maca)</em></p>

KILLING CONTINUES. A member of the Manobo tribe, Joel Meniano, is gunned down by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels on Wednesday (Sept. 21, 2022) in the hinterlands of Barangay Calatngan, San Miguel, Surigao del Sur. Meniano is the second Manobo tribe member allegedly killed by the NPA rebels this month. (Photo courtesy of Datu Rico Maca)

BUTUAN CITY – Communist rebels shot dead another indigenous people (IP) member in San Miguel, Surigao del Sur, barely two weeks after they also killed a Manobo farmer in the same town, an IP representative said Thursday.

San Miguel municipal IP Mandatory Representative Rico Maca identified the latest victim as Joel Meniano, a Manobo tribe member who was slain on Wednesday afternoon.

“The NPA rebels are again on killing-spree victimizing our tribal people and in complete disregard of our human rights and the right to live peacefully in our communities,” Maca said in an interview.

Maca said he interviewed the wife of the victim who saw NPA rebels kill her husband.

“The victim and his wife were gathering wood in the hinterlands of Barangay Calatngan, San Miguel on Wednesday when the rebels arrived, and without any provocation, shot multiple times her husband to death,” he said.

The insurgents also poked a gun on the forehead of the victim’s wife before she was allowed to leave, he added.

“The victim’s wife is still in shock as she saw how the rebels killed her husband. She was also threatened before the rebels left the crime scene,” Maca said.

He said the victim and his wife have 10 children, seven of whom are still dependent on their parents.

“As we condemn this barbaric act of the NPA rebels, we also call on authorities to pursue the perpetrators to render justice to the family of the victim,” Maca said.

The Manobo community in San Miguel, he added, is still grieving the death of Marvin Alimboyong, gunned down by NPA guerrillas on Sept. 9 while tending his hogs at his farm in Barangay Caromata, San Miguel.

“Our mourning continues, as one of our own has just been slaughtered by these rebels. I don’t know when will they stop this unabated killings of the Manobos in Surigao Sur,” Maca said.

The Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

The National Democratic Front was formally designated as a terrorist organization by the Anti-Terrorism Council on June 23, 2021, citing it as “an integral and inseparable part” of the CPP-NPA created in April 1973. (PNA)

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