KARAPATAN on NTF-ELCAC statement: Gaslighting cannot hide crisis in Negros
KARAPATAN Public Information
PRESS RELEASE
May 27, 2026
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
KARAPATAN on NTF-ELCAC statement: Gaslighting cannot hide crisis in Negros
“The Marcos Jr. administration and NTF-ELCAC can spend billions manufacturing propaganda and congratulating themselves, but their classic gaslighting can never erase the crisis in Negros, and the people’s resistance to oppression and injustice,” KARAPATAN said.
Human rights alliance KARAPATAN slammed the latest statement of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) as a systematic and deliberate concealment of the dire conditions that continue to plague Negros and the entire country.
“Classic na taktika ng mga pasista ang sisihin ang mga rebelde sa lahat ng kapalpakan ng sistemang sila mismo ang nagpapatuloy (“It is a classic fascist tactic to blame rebels for all the atrocities and failures of the very system they themselves preserve”),” said Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general.
“Marcos Jr. and his NAP UPD, and their entire machinery in the NTF-ELCAC, operates on one absurd and delusional premise, that everything in the Philippines is supposedly fine and the only problem left is the CPP-NPA.”
Palabay, however, asked whether the NTF-ELCAC and the government have done anything substantial to address the root causes of social unrest in the Philippines, considering their so-called socio-economic programs can be considered as mere dole-outs.
“How can everything be fine in Negros when vast tracts of land remain monopolized by a few landlord families while generations of peasants remain landless?” the group asked. “How can everything be fine when sacadas and sugar workers break their backs under the heat of the sun for starvation wages of how much, 60 pesos, that can barely buy a kilo of rice?” asked Palabay.
KARAPATAN added that the task force’s attempt to portray Negros as a “model of peace and development” is “a stupendous lie” amid worsening socioeconomic conditions in the island, which has also been described as a microcosm of the whole country. Palabay added that the NTF-ELCAC’s recent statements are “not peace pronouncements, but recycled scripts of red-tagging, fearmongering, and victim-blaming.”
“Amidst State terror, corruption happens in broad daylight and billions of pesos of people’s money disappear into the pockets and suitcases of the powerful? Clearly, it is this government and the system it preserves that remain at the crux of the problem,” Palabay said.
The group also added that in the NTF-ELCAC’s statements, they make it seem as though poverty, landlessness, hunger, and human rights violations, which they themselves are responsible for, simply emerged out of nowhere. “The people did not suddenly revolt overnight, but neither did they revolted simply because they wanted to,” said Palabay. “It is rooted in deep social injustice, political repression, and an exploitative system protected by state violence.”
The group also condemned the task force’s repeated use of terms such as “terror-grooming” and “deception pipeline,” saying these are “McCarthyist and Trumpist buzzwords weaponized to justify surveillance, harassment, abduction, and attacks against activists, organizers, students, and dissenters.”
“There can be no genuine peace while peasants are dispossessed of land, workers are exploited, and people live in fear because of state repression. Peace is not measured by the number of soldiers deployed, the number of communities militarized, or the number of activists silenced, red-tagged, and killed,” said Palabay. #
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign.