Armed elements of the Philippine National Police killed five civilians in their home in Bugtong village, Mandaon town, Masbate province in the early hours of 24 October. The PNP named only one of their victims, Ernie Rosero, claiming that he was a New People’s Army official and that all five were killed in a “gunfight” with the police.

The Communist Party of the Philippines condemned the massacre, saying those killed were all local peasants and not NPA members. Marco Valbuena, CPP Chief Information Officer, cited reports by the NPA’s Regional Operational Command, saying there was no armed encounter on that day nor was there any NPA unit in the area.

“We hold the PNP accountable for this heinous crime,” Valbuena said. He said the massacre was perpetrated by the police following orders from PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar to “put an end” to the NPA in Masbate and the Bicol region.

A day after the killings, Gen. Eleazar praised his men for the “neutralization of five members of the CPP / NPA / NDF in Masbate”, maintaining that the five civilians “engaged the approaching police officers” in a gunfight which resulted in their deaths. Local police presented several firearms and explosive devices to the media, alleging these belonged to the victims.

This massacre, Valbuena declared, “forms part of the worsening state terrorism perpetrated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the PNP against the peasant masses and people of Masbate.”

Duterte’s security forces seek to terrorize the people through killings, abductions, unlawful arrests, beatings, armed intimidation, forced surrenders, hamletting of communities and other abuses “in their futile drive to put an end to the people’s armed resistance”. He added that Masbate has seen the biggest number of extrajudicial killings in the country, “there are now 74 killings in the province under the terrorist Duterte regime.”

The local NPA unit must seek to immediately identify and arrest those directly responsible for the massacre, according to Valbuena. “The NPA must do everything in its power to give justice to the victims and their families.”