Duterte gives shoot-to-kill order against armed NPA – Esperon

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon says there is a shoot-to-kill order against armed NPA from President Duterte.

The confirmation came days after the “bloody Sunday” wherein at least nine activists and six others were arrested in police operations in Calabarzon.

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“[L]ike the Gestapo-esque police raids in Negros which led to the mass arrests of activists and progressive leaders through search warrants manufactured from the government’s factory of lies, the Duterte regime is now unleashing the unbridled horrors of fascism and the crackdown on dissent upon the Southern Tagalog region using the same dirty tactics,” she said.

“Nothing could be more apt than calling this day a ‘Bloody Sunday.’ The fascist Duterte regime spares no day in its murderous campaign of State terror with the arrests and killings of labor leaders, organizers, activists, and human rights workers in tokhang- style raids Southern Tagalog today along with peddling the same lies and dirty tactics, from the bogus search warrants, the ‘nanlaban’ narrative to the tanim-ebidensiya scheme to justify these arrests and killings,” she added.

Also read: Senators want probe on ‘bloody Sunday’ killing in Calabarzon

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Duterte gives shoot-to-kill order against armed NPA – Esperon

Progressive groups claimed that the deadly crackdowns came after President Rodrigo Duterte announced during the joint meeting of the National Task Force – Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict in Northern Mindanao (NTF-RTF-ELCAC X) in Cagayan de Oro City to kill suspected rebels.

ACT Teachers Party-list Representative France Castro also urged the Supreme Court to investigate the “factory of ” that was used during simultaneous police operations on Sunday that lead to arrests and killings of  in Calabarzon.

Castro denounced the “Tokhang-style” operations, claiming that the Duterte administration has been using search warrants to set-up and plant firearms against progressive groups’ leaders and members.

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“We urge the Supreme Court to review its rule allowing executive judges of Quezon City and Manila to issue search warrants valid nationwide and the seeming complicity of several judges with human rights violations by their issuance of search warrants in violation of the Rules of Court,” Castro said.