MANILA — Troopers from the 1st Special Forces Company have discovered a New People’s Army (NPA) mass grave in Barangay Aposkahoy, Claveria town, Misamis Oriental last May 21.
The former unit is under the operational control of the 58th Infantry Battalion.
In a statement forwarded to the PNA Saturday, 58th Infantry Battalion commander Lt. Col. Jose Eriel Niembra said the grave contain the remains of four persons and their belongings.
Residents in the area revealed that the victims were executed by the NPAs for withdrawing their support to the rebels in 1986.
“The poor people in the countryside are all victims of NPA threat and intimidation, even now this kind of unreasonable killing is still existing through the NPA’s Special Partisan Units (SPARU). The people have awakened to the reality that under the NPA, there is no justice system or rule of law, only death for those they found guilty or even just suspected of being detrimental to the underground organization,” Niembra stressed.
In the 1980s, the NPA higher organ launched a massive purging known as “Operation Zombie” by killing their comrades suspected of being military informants, including those who withdrew their support from the movement and those who are not useful to them anymore.
The exhumed human remains were turned over to PNP Region 10 Crime Laboratory for possible identification for them to be returned to their families and given decent burial.