E-Paper
Sign In
Philippine human rights groups demand probe into deaths of 19 people on Negros Island
The military claimed they killed communist insurgents during a series of armed encounters; rights advocates said there were civilians, including a student leader and local journalist
- PUBLISHED: Fri 24 Apr 2026, 6:00 AM UPDATED: Fri 24 Apr 2026, 1:24 PM
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has called for “an immediate and impartial investigation” into the reported killings and forced evacuation of hundreds of families in two peasant villages of Toboso, Negros Occidental, in the central Philippines.
ICHRP noted successive military operations by the Philippine Army since April 19 resulted in the death of 19 individuals and displacement of peasant families in barangays Salamanca and San Jose in the town of Toboso, on Negros Island, which is historically known as the centre of the Philippine sugar industry.
Recommended For You
The government-owned Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported the 79th Infantry Battalion engaged members of the Communist New People’s Army (NPA), “resulting in 19 members of the armed group being 'neutralised', including identified leaders, and 24 firearms being seized.”
Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.
Human rights groups, however, belied the military’s claim that all casualties were NPA combatants – noting some of the casualties were not present in the initial firefight but were killed during separate pursuit operations.
‘Shy’ student leader
Among those killed were university student leader Alyssa Alano and local journalist RJ Nichole Ledesma, who were reportedly conducting research into the conditions of peasants on Negros Island at the time of their killings.
A political science student, Alano was an incumbent student council officer of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, the country’s top university. She headed the education and research arm of the student government organisation and was university chairperson of the League of Filipino Students.
Alano was described by her former sociological theory professor Gerardo Lanuza as quiet and shy in class but intelligent.
Alano’s friends said she went to Negros for an immersion programme with a farming community to learn firsthand the peasant condition on the island. “She was slight of build, so could not have carried an assault rifle to fight it out with government soldiers for an entire day,” they pointed out.
Committed community journalist
Ledesma had the same intellectual curiosity that Alyssa had. As a University of St La Salle psychology student, he also immersed himself in Negros Island’s farming communities, learning why the vast majority are destitute in a fertile land while a few families live like royalty.
Like Alyssa, Ledesma was an exceptional student. For several years, he edited the university student publication, even winning a government-sponsored journalism contest. He was also a poet and a fictionist, winning rare spots in national writing workshops and making friends with the Philippine literati.
After graduation, Ledesma became a journalist, documenting the struggles of seasonal farm workers who descend on the island during sugar cane planting and harvesting seasons. Eventually, he headed Paghimutad-Negros, a community media outfit, and became the coordinator of the People’s Alternative Media Network on the island.
Ledesma's journalism was human rights-based, and he also became known for his environmental stories, documenting community-based renewable energy projects. It was on such coverage that he met his untimely death.
The group Human Rights Advocates-Negros discovered Ledesma's body in another community three kilometres away from where the initial skirmish started on April 19.
The island's feudal history
The Philippines has the longest-running communist rebellion in Asia – its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), was formed almost six decades ago on March 29, 1969. They took up arms to eradicate centuries-old feudal economy based on plantation farming, where peasants live as some of the poorest in the country, and landlords are among the richest.
The armed conflict between government forces and the NPA never ceased, and the Philippine Army used the blanket claim that all 19 casualties were NPA guerillas who fought it out with them.
The latest gunfight in the town of Toboso was not a first, but it was the bloodiest armed encounter between the two forces on the island since the 1990s, according to local human rights advocates.
Negros Island, divided into two main provinces: Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental, has experienced massacres in the past. Near Tobogo is the town of Escalante, where, in September 1985, during the last year of former strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr, father of the current Philippine president, government soldiers opened fire on protesting farmers, instantly killing more than 20 people and injuring 30 victims.
Another bloody incident happened in October 2018, during the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained at The Hague for charges of crimes against humanity. That time, a private army of a despotic landlord fired upon a group of farmers having a meal, killing nine, including four women and two children.
The farmers defied the landlord by planting vegetables instead of sugarcane. They said they could make meals of their vegetable produce while only the landlord would earn from sugarcane. They paid for their insolence with their lives.
Friends and colleagues of Alano and Ledesma – in their outpouring of tributes shared on social media – said it was the kind of dire situation in Negros that drove the two young advocates "to study and document, to dream and hope for, and to find solutions to the economic inequities and social exploitation."
"They died for their dreams."
