The Far South Mindanao Regional Operational Command of the New People’s Army condemned on 11 January the non-stop aerial bombings and artillery shelling by various units of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on the villages and ancestral lands of the indigenous T’boli in South Cotabato province, in southern Philippines.

According to the NPA, Duterte’s security forces had already conducted more than 104 aerial strafing and bombings, and artillery shelling attacks between February 2017 up to October 2021, all aimed against rural villages from northern Cagayan de Oro to southern Sarangani provinces.

The NPA’s regional command said their forces are fighting back against these attacks. Initially, on 30 December 2021, the AFP flew fighter jets and attack helicopters, dropping 12 bombs on the farms of T’boli town, just a few hundred meters from the residential village of Busong-Apang, in South Cotabato province. There were no NPA units in the area.

The next day, 31 December, AFP ground troops stormed towards Busong-Apang. A local NPA unit engaged the AFP troopers in a firefight, inflicting “many casualties to the enemy,” said the NPA regional command. In the encounter that ensued, at least seven enemy troopers died while three were wounded. The NPA Red fighters suffered no casualties.

In retaliation, the AFP fired artillery shells toward the villages from their ships stationed in the sea near Kiamba, Sarangani.

On 1 January 2022, in a mountainous area also in T’boli town, an NPA unit ambushed a Special Forces Battalion of the AFP. Initial reports say AFP casualties ran to 5 killed and 2 wounded with no NPA casualties.

Security forces of the Duterte government are intensifying their military operations in the villages of Kiamba, Sarangani province and T'boli, South Cotabato province. These are the same areas of operation of 88 Kiamba Mining Development Corporation and Kiamba Mining Corporation. Indigenous peoples in the area as well as local anti-mining groups have long been resisting the destruction of ancestral lands and key biodiversity areas by these companies.