NPA's killing of 74-year-old woman in Negros draws condemnation, calls for full probe from former rebels

The New People’s Army (NPA) has admitted responsibility for the killing of a 74-year-old woman in Barangay Tapi in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, an incident that former rebels say underscores a continuing pattern of summary executions dressed up as “revolutionary justice.”

In a statement last week, the Armando Sumayang Jr. Command of the NPA claimed it carried out the February 3 killing of Leonora “Leonor” Anguit, accusing the elderly woman of being a “military informant.” The rebel group justified the attack by alleging that Anguit bore “blood debts” linked to an April 2025 encounter on her property where seven NPA members were killed during clashes with government forces.

According to initial reports, several armed individuals entered Anguit’s home, restrained her husband, searched for her, and shot her in the forehead at close range. The NPA said it had imposed a so-called “death penalty” on Anguit and framed the killing as a warning to others allegedly aiding state forces.

Noel Legaspi, president of Buklod Kapayapaan Federation Inc., the national federation of former rebels and people’s organizations, said the killing should be treated for what it is: a cold-blooded crime against a civilian.

“This summary killing, done in cold blood, is not ‘revolutionary justice.’ It is plain murder, made more contemptuous because the victim is a senior,” Legaspi said.

He added that the act violates the most basic principles of due process and humanitarian norms.

“There is no due process. And even if there were, the fact that the murder was carried out against a senior citizen, even the manner of killing, goes against the rules of engagement under international humanitarian law,” he said.

Legaspi also pointed to what he called the “selective outrage” of legal national democratic organizations.

“This also highlights the hypocrisy of Karapatan and other national democratic groups who never condemned Anguit’s killing, and the other 26 incidents of the same nature,” Legaspi said. “Why are they so obsessed with demanding justice or an investigation for the alleged killing of unnamed, unverified Mangyan children in Mindoro when there is a clear human rights crisis in Negros?”

Buklod Kapayapaan, Legaspi said, has recorded at least 23 killings in Negros Island since 2025 linked to what he described as the practice of the CPP-NPA of labeling civilians as “spies” or accusing them of having “blood debts” in order to justify their execution.

Buklod Kapayapaan, he said, is now calling for a full investigation into the series of killings and other similar incidents in the province, stressing that communities deserve protection from both armed violence and disinformation that normalizes abuse.

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), for its part, also condemned the incident, calling it a case of “spy-tagging” that resulted in a summary execution and urging intensified case build-up and accountability efforts.