Justice for Negros 19!

The day before the U.S. and the Philippines launched their largest joint military exercise ever, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) assassinated 19 people in the sugarcane-growing region of Toboso, Negros Occidental. Starting early in the morning of April 19, the military slaughter lasted 12 hours. Among the dead are children, journalists, peasant organizers, students, researchers, fighters in the Communist Party’s New People’s Army (NPA) and two Filipino-Americans, Lyle Prijoles and Kai Dana Sorem. Several soldiers involved in the massacre were later awarded medals.

At the request of the victims’ families, an independent autopsy was conducted. Already, the remains were in advanced stages of decomposition because they had been plastic-wrapped. Gunshot wounds showed that they were shot in the back, and one body was misidentified.

As a final salute to their fallen compatriots, the people of Toboso defied the military clampdown on their communities to bring the dead to their final resting place. Across the country, the Negros 19 were memorialized at May Day demonstrations.

From the 1900s until today, the peasants and rural poor of Negros have fought to defend their livelihoods against the oligarchs and their U.S. overlords. In 2023, the region was designated a “priority” for the AFP, which established a joint task force specifically for Negros. The NPA has won supporters in its fight against intense rural poverty, slave-like working conditions, landlessness and neocolonial oppression. Those who take up arms in the struggle against imperialist depredations must be defended.

U.S. imperialism is the life-support system for the AFP. The bullets and weapons used in Negros were either bought with U.S. money or directly supplied by the American military, which trains AFP soldiers, upgrades its bases, supplies hardware, etc., and provides millions of dollars every year for counterinsurgency operations. As its empire crumbles, Washington is determined to make the Philippines a frontline state in its drive to destroy China. Last year, the Senate passed a bill allocating an additional $2.5 billion in military aid to the Philippines over the next five years.

The Philippines under U.S. imperialist domination is a powder keg ready to blow. De facto martial law continues to exist, particularly in the countryside. More than half the population is either in poverty or about to fall into it. The economic shocks brought on by U.S. wars in the Middle East have driven the price of gas and cooking fuel sky high. With pressure increasing at the base of society, U.S. lackey president Marcos rolls out one repressive measure after another, such as the Safer Cities initiative targeting youth, workers and the urban poor.

There must be justice for the Negros 19. The bloody massacre throws a spotlight on the repressive machinery built up by the U.S. to enforce its neocolonial subjugation. Some groups, like Anakbayan and Bayan, are demanding that the Marcos government be held accountable under “international human rights law.” All such laws and bodies like the ICC were established to protect U.S. imperialism’s interests and cover its crimes—from Gaza to the Philippines. Instead, the anger over this atrocity must be directed into building an anti-imperialist alliance between the Filipino toiling masses and the U.S. working class, which itself is under siege by the masters in Washington. U.S. out of the Philippines!