(An Official Statement of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN)-Aklan)

We fiercely condemn to the strongest terms the malicious, outrageous, and baseless vilification and red tagging of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army against Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) and its leaders who it has accused to be connected with the Communist Party of the Philippines and New Peoples Army (CPP-NPA), which the government’s Anti-Terrorism Council has declared as terrorist organization. We also strongly condemn the Philippine Army’s despicable statement for BAYAN leaders to be declared as persona non grata by the Aklanons.

In in an interview with 3rd IDPA Spokesperson, Capt. Kim Apitong aired over Bombo Radyo Kalibo on June 23, 2022, the military accused BAYAN leaders as spreaders of fake news with the expose made by BAYAN-Aklan Spokesperson Kim Tugna regarding the deployment of troops of the 301st Brigade of the Philippine Army in different urban poor and fisherfolk communities in the municipalities of Kalibo and New Washington in the province of Aklan. Lying through his teeth,

Capt. Apitong dismissed Mr. Tugna’s statement as fake news while admitting moments later that they have indeed deployed personnel in the said areas for a civil-military operation. When asked why they specifically chose these communities for their supposed CMO CET, Capt. Apitong did not categorically answer the question.

For BAYAN-Aklan, the Philippine Army’s conduct of their so-called civil military operation competency enhancement training in the above-mentioned areas are mainly military operations aimed against progressive organization and activist personalities.

This is clearly manifested by how their troops proliferate in the communities, particularly in different puroks of C. Laserna Streets of Poblacion, Kalibo, bringing with them pictures of BAYAN-Aklan leaders, Kim-Sin F. Tugna and George T. Calaor, and showing these to whoever they came across with, and investigating the movements of BAYAN and the whereabouts of these personalities.

These military movements and operations in communities where BAYAN and its members exist and reside, are the same pattern of military operations, the Synchronized Enhanced Military and Police Operation (SEMPO) that the AFP and the PNP conducted in various communities in Tapaz, Capiz and Calinog, Iloilo, which ended up in the illegal arrest of 17 and the massacre of 9 Indigenous People who are members and leaders of TUMANDOK.

With this, they must be pulled-out from people from our communities. Their presence in these highly populated areas is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention Protocols and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law.

BAYAN is also denouncing their malicious accusation of corruption and being a spreader of fake news against its leader.

The military is desperately trying to project its corrupt, tainted, and deceitful barbaric institutional image to BAYAN and activist leaders. Unlike them, BAYAN and our activist leaders are known and commended for their integrity and prestige in the endeavor of rendering selfless service to the people. The military, in spreading these malicious, despicable, and unfounded accusation, seems to be looking at its own reflection in the mirror. After all, it is their institution that has been grandiosely wasting billions of people’s money in corruption and in buying atrocious liars and dressing them up as “Kadres” and using them to spread dreadful disinformation and red-tagging in the various modus operandi of the National Task Force to end Local Communist and Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

Furthermore, BAYAN-Aklan strongly denounces the accusation of the military against its leaders who they claim are destroying the lives of the youth and the people when it is the military themselves who are guilty of such. The military destroyed the lives and livelihood of thousands of youth and Filipinos when they committed their various operation like when they laid siege on Lumad communities in Mindanao, massacred the Lumads, and burned their schools; and when they grabbed the ancestral lands of Tumandoks in Tapaz and Jamindan, Capiz and built their camps and used thousands of hectares of our Indigenous People’s ancestral domain for military exercises and purposes.

In Aklan, Dutertes build, build, build program and Rice Tariffication Law, among others, have led to rice shortage and production losses among our small farmers. The Duterte regime has also destroyed the lives of more than 36,000 thousand workers when he autocratically and militarily closed Boracay island, thereby dislocating workers, odd jobbers and urban poor.

As the country currently faces one of its worst crises with the runaway oil price hikes and the skyrocketing of prices of rice and other commodities, the lowest peso value in 17 years, joblessness, the shrinking value of wages, the tribulations brought by the pandemic, the destruction of livelihood, and a lot more, the suppression of dissent and human rights violations are also worsening and intensifying.

Hence, the current attacks on legal and patriotic organizations in Aklan is not an isolated case. It is part of a grand design of fascists and fascist-wannabes to try to silence the people into fear and subservience.

We will not take this sitting down.

We strongly condemn this deadly vilification of the military against BAYAN and its leaders and we call on all the people to unite and force the military to pull out their troops and operation out of our communities.