Nineteen people died in a single firefight in the sugar cane country of Toboso, on Negros island, on April 19. Only one soldier was wounded. That lopsided toll is what set off the calls for an investigation.
Two of the dead were American. Lyle Prijoles was named soon after the clash. Late the following Saturday, the government’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict said a second US citizen, Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, was among those killed. Both had arrived in Negros Occidental about a month earlier, it said. The task force called the confirmation a matter of “serious concern” and described all 19 dead as “combatant” members of the New People’s Army, which has fought an insurgency for nearly 60 years.
The US Embassy had not responded to a request for comment when the statement came out.
Residents flee, critics push back
More than 300 residents of Toboso ran from their homes as the shooting echoed across the farmland, the municipal disaster management office told AFP.
Congresswoman Leila de Lima said the Philippine Army’s 79th Infantry Battalion’s operation “warrant[s] an urgent investigation.” She pointed to the deaths of a young student and a community journalist. The local rights monitor Karapatan said the number killed “triggers significant questions and conclusions on the conduct of the AFP operations.”
The Commission on Human Rights has opened its own probe.
The army’s position
The military handed out medals to a number of soldiers who took part. It insists the raid was “a legitimate armed encounter, not a massacre,” and says troops seized 24 firearms. Colonel Louie Dema-ala, the army spokesperson, told reporters on Sunday that the military was “open to investigation and the evidence will speak for us.”
Soldiers had been fighting “remnants” of the NPA near Toboso, he said, in what he called “one of the more active remnants of the (guerrilla) front in the central Philippines.” The army estimates fewer than 2,000 armed rebels remain nationwide.
