{"id":13228,"date":"2026-05-22T06:55:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=13228"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:07:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:07:30","slug":"journalist-and-activists-killed-in-toboso-negros-occidental-military-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/journalist-and-activists-killed-in-toboso-negros-occidental-military-operation\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalist and activists killed in Toboso, Negros Occidental military operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nineteen people, including both New People\u2019s Army (NPA) fighters and unarmed civilians, were killed<\/a> on April 19, 2026, during a military operation in Barangay Salamanca in the province Negros Occidental, sparking national and international outrage and demands for an impartial investigation. The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and officially designated as a terrorist group.<\/p>\n

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claimed<\/a> a decisive victory over communist insurgents, asserting<\/a> that all those killed were armed rebels. However, this narrative has been strongly disputed<\/a> by human rights groups, local activists, and the families of the victims, who insist<\/a> that at least nine of the dead were civilians; this was confirmed<\/a> by the CPP. Two of the civilians killed<\/a> were minors, and two citizens from the United States.<\/p>\n

Human rights organizations emphasize<\/a> that several of these individuals had no known links to the NPA and were in the area for community work, research or reporting, including<\/a>: Community journalist R.J. Ledesma (Altermidya), student councilor Alyssa Alano, youth rights activist Maureen Keil Santuyo (National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates\/NNARA-Youth), peasants rights activist Errol Wendel (Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura), and human rights activist Lyle Prijoles (International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines California) and his companion Kai Sorem from the USA.<\/p>\n

Eyewitness reports and forensic findings have raised<\/a> serious questions about the conduct of the military operation. Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun reported<\/a> gunshot wounds to the back and potential mishandling of bodies. According to Fortun, Errol Wendel\u2019s body was misidentified<\/a>; Wendel’s body remains missing.<\/p>\n

The military maintains that all fatalities were combatants. The CPP, however, confirmed<\/a> only ten were NPA fighters and identified the rest as civilians. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) announced<\/a> an investigation, echoing calls from civil society groups for full transparency.<\/p>\n

The Toboso killings highlighted a persistent cycle of violence<\/a> in the Philippines linked to the armed conflict between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and NPA fighters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 Karapatan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nineteen people, including both New People\u2019s Army (NPA) fighters and unarmed civilians, were killed on April 19, 2026, during a military operation in Barangay Salamanca in the province Negros Occidental, sparking national and international outrage and demands for an impartial investigation. The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63,58,59,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news","category-internal-affairs","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13228"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13274,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13228\/revisions\/13274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}