** Massacre of B'laan family perpetrated by Benigno Aquino regime -- Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)

"On the morning of 18 October, fascist soldiers of the 27th Infantry
Battalion indiscriminately strafed the Capion household and justified
its execrable act by claiming that Capion's husband Daguil, was an
armed bandit."

PRESS STATEMENT

CPP Information Bureau

23 October 2012

** Massacre of B'laan family perpetrated by Benigno Aquino regime --
CPP
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**

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) condemns the Aquino
regime in the strongest possible terms for the heinous massacre of
pregnant mother Jovy Malid-Capion and her two sons, age 13 and 8, by
elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). On the morning
of 18 October, fascist soldiers of the 27th Infantry Battalion
indiscriminately strafed the Capion household in Barangay (village)
Kiblawis, Kiblawan, Davao del Sur and justified its execrable act by
claiming that Capion's husband Daguil, was an "armed bandit." The
couple's five-year old daughter was wounded in the attack.

The CPP expresses its deepest sympathies to the Capion family as well
as to the B'laan tribe to which they belong.

The massacre of the Capion family was carried out by the Aquino
regime's armed men at the behest of the Xstrata-SMI mining company.
Over the past decade, a number of B'laan tribespeople have been
victims of extrajudicial killings and other abuses of human rights by
state agents. The B'laan have been actively opposing the entry of the
Xstrata-SMI gold and copper mining operations in Sitio Bong Mal,
Kiblawis which have displaced the lumad communities from their
ancestral lands and caused grave destruction to the environment and
the people's livelihood. The B'laan have been waging armed resistance
against Xstrata-SMI through their Red Pangayaw armed militias, to
which Daguil Capion belongs.

For more than two years now, the Aquino regime has intensified its
Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression especially in the rural areas.
Using the signboard of "peace and development," the Aquino regime has
mobilized its fascist soldiers against the people's democratic mass
movement and armed resistance. Peasant and minority communities,
especially those active in campaigns for land reform and against
mining operations are virtually placed under military rule, in a vain
attempt to stem the tide of people's resistance.

Aquino's fascist soldiers have been carrying out their armed campaigns
with impunity, perpetrating massacres, extrajudicial killings,
abductions, arrests, torture and other grave attacks against the
people's human rights. Restrictions against free movement and commerce
are imposed, causing economic hardships and displacements.

The Filipino people must hold the Aquino regime and its armed forces
accountable for the massacre of the Capion family. It must also be
held responsible for the killing of the Lotino family in Daraga, Albay
in October 2010, the massacre of the Mancera family in Labo, Camarines
Norte in February 2012 and the related killing of barangay official
Merlyn Bermas and Gerard Oreza, a 4-year old child who happened to be
riding on the same vehicle, in August 2012, the murder of two hunters
in Magdalena, Laguna in February 2012, the killing of botanist
Leonardo Co and two of his companions in Kananga, Leyte in November
2010, and numerous other cases of heinous fascist crimes.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) calls on the New People's
Army (NPA) to carry out tactical offensives in order to punish human
rights violators and the most brutal armed units of the AFP for their
grave crimes against the people.