[OPINION] The killings continue. Filipinos must take notice.

Allan Sioson, his live-in partner Rosalia Mena, Sally Saplao, and a 15-year-old kid were in a living room on the second floor of Sioson and Mena’s residence when four men broke into the house and shot them all to death. The gunmen fled the crime scene using a pair of motorcycles. The killings occurred midnight of May 29 in Brgy. North Bay Boulevard North, deep in the heart of Navotas City.

It was a massacre typical of the executions that had marred Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, perhaps a brutal reminder that the bloodlust has not ceased. And the Navotas killings are just one instance of many under a new administration that has vowed to seek “recalibration.”

Romeo Agua was about to return home to feed his family’s pigs when soldiers from the 9th Infantry Brigade allegedly accosted and executed the 42-year-old on May 15, two weeks before the Sioson massacre, in Brgy. San Jose, Panganiban, Camarines Norte. Several gunshots to the head, and one in his mouth, supposedly finished Agua off. 

Nearly a month before, on April 14, Visayan activist leaders Manuel Tinio and Arthur Lucenario went missing reportedly at the hands of elements from the 47th Infantry Battalion. Tinio’s cadaver, riddled with seven gunshot wounds, surfaced in Ubay, Bohol on the same day. Meanwhile, Lucenario was pronounced a casualty in an alleged encounter between the military and New People’s Army rebels on May 12, three days before Agua’s murder. His body, however, bore signs of severe torture.

Five days after Tinio and Lucenario were forcibly disappeared, it was the turn of National Democratic Front peace consultant Rogelio Posadas and his companions to suffer the same fate. Posadas was summarily executed, reportedly by elements from the 23rd Infantry Brigade, while his comrades and drivers are still missing. 

When May beckoned, more killings ensued. On May 3, soldiers from the 94th Infantry Brigade allegedly snatched away and murdered farmer Crispin Tingal Jr. The military, as in Lucenario’s case, countered with the “NPA encounter” story. But Tingal’s family refuted the accusation: no, the farmer was far from a dangerous rebel. He was a loving husband and father, a disciple of the church, and an active stalwart of sustainable livelihood programs pushed forward by the government itself.

Two days after the Tingal murder, members of the police’s Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) killed chainsaw helpers Joel Balading Recare and Oscar “Oca” Alastoy in yet another alleged “encounter.” State troops tagged them as communists. Their families answered back: no, they were not rebels. Even the village chief in Palapag, Northern Samar cleared them of any red tags.

Alex Dolorosa was the paralegal officer of the union of BPO workers in Bacolod City when he went missing for three days in Brgy. Alijis. He, too, was murdered as April came to a close. Back in February, Danish national Tim Moerch and his Filipina partner, Myla Ozoa Vagas — suspects in the murder of a Negros Oriental local official — were executed mere hours after they were released from detention. Days before, a robbery suspect in Quezon City and another drug suspect in Naga City were murdered in separate police operations, with the cops peddling the timeworn excuse that the suspects had “fought back.”

This spate of killings do not only cover civilians, activists, or crime suspects. On the first Bonifacio Day under Ferdinand Marcos Jr., award-winning poet, National Book Award recipient, and peace consultant Ericson Acosta was murdered by the military. Months before that, on the first anniversary of the Aquino-Galman killings under the new Marcos, soldiers in Samar accosted underground movement leaders Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, with eight other guerillas, tortured them, then killed them. The military even allegedly staged a boat explosion to cover up the carnage. Nearly two weeks prior this writing, former student leader Joshua Sagdullas was among the four alleged rebels slain in a firefight with soldiers in Northern Samar — almost a month after yet another “clash” between soldiers and rebels snuffed out seven lives in another Northern Samar town.

The list is endless. The numbers are more restless: 323 drug-related executions, over a hundred killings linked to counter-insurgency, three slain journalists. These statistics, however, fail to reflect the entirety of the truth. More assassinations and murders occur in between; even local officials, such as Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo, have been killed.

We can only wonder, why is this persistent bloodshed not hogging the headlines? The Romualdez-Arroyo-Duterte drama, Eat Bulaga, and other shenanigans almost bury the daily killings under the Marcos-Duterte regime.

Changing who sits in Malacañang has failed — and still fails — to guarantee an end to these killings. While Marcos’ rhetoric has steered away from Duterte’s vulgarity, and even as the International Criminal Court (ICC) achieves significant leaps in holding Duterte accountable, the reality on the ground has not been altered. The rate of impunity has not been trimmed down. Blood still flows along the streets of our country, but some of us have been lulled into believing that it is not the Marcos regime killing our people.

This regime kills. Like Duterte’s and his father’s. All that Filipinos must do is to take notice, document every single one of the killings, and clamor for an end to this bloodbath. – Rappler.com

Karl Patrick Wilfred M. Suyat is one of the three co-founders of Project Gunita, an academic and research organization focusing on archival material about the Marcos dictatorship. He is also a staffer of the Institute for Nationalist Studies and a member of the August Twenty-One Movement. Currently, he is also undertaking a Malikhaing Pagsulat sa Filipino associate course in the University of the Philippines-Diliman.