The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) calls for an immediate inquiry into the brutal killings of five reported members of the New People’s Army, namely, Hannah Cesista, Domingo Compoc, Parlito Historia, Marlon Omosura, and Alberto Sancho at Sitio Matin-ao 2, Barangay Campango, Bilar, Bohol last February 23.

According to raw accounts from local residents, the combatants were not killed in an armed encounter but were captured near a residence where the police were serving an arrest warrant. A human rights group has reportedly obtained a photograph showing Compoc alive and in the custody of state forces. The group also gathered that the NPA members were tortured and summarily executed with Cesista missing an eye and others displaying visible stab wounds. Social media posts presumably published by the police and military show a photo of Cesista’s muddied remains, in line with their dastardly practice of staging and desecrating the remains of enemy forces as trophies.

Under this context, the brutal torture and killings of the captured NPA members is a grave breach of international humanitarian law which mandates the humane treatment of captured combatants as prisoners of war. They contradict President Marcos Jr.’s posturing about his government’s supposed pursuit of a “human rights based approach to development” and betray their tyrannical scheme to show no quarters to dissenters.

We thus dare the Philippine government to walk the talk: to immediately conduct an impartial probe on the Bilar incident and hold the perpetrators accountable. #