25/05/2026
๐ก๐ฒ๐ด๐ฟ๐ผ๐ ๐ง๐๐ฟ๐ป๐ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฃ๐ฃ-๐ก๐ฃ๐-๐ก๐๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฉ๐ถ๐ผ๐น๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) believes that the recent encounters in Toboso and Cauayan, Negros Occidental, have finally shattered the illusion of the so-called armed revolution in Negros. What remains visible today are not heroic narratives, but the ruins of a violent movement that consumed generations of Negrenses through deception, terror-grooming, spy-tagging killings, fear, and ideological exploitation.
For decades, Negros became vulnerable to communist agitation because of undeniable social inequities, agrarian tensions, and poverty. But history has now delivered its verdict. While Negrenses demanded justice, reform, and dignity, they ultimately rejected violence as the path toward change. The armed struggle did not liberate Negros. It buried its youth, terrorized its communities, and wasted countless futures.
The April 19 encounter in Barangay Salamanca, Toboso, where 19 armed CTG members were neutralized, marked a decisive collapse of the remaining terrorist infrastructure in Northern Negros. Among those killed was Roger Fabillar, long identified by security forces and local communities as among the most feared CTG figures in the area.
The operation exposed not merely an armed unit, but the dying remnants of a movement already abandoned and despised by the very people it falsely claimed to represent.
What proved even more revealing was the disclosure of 3rd Infantry Division Commander Major General Michael Samson that local officials, barangay leaders, and ordinary residents themselves pleaded with authorities to finally end the reign of terror of Fabillar and other CTG remnants. Communities had grown exhausted from intimidation, extortion, executions, coercion, and fear.
The people of Negros were no longer protecting the insurgency. They were helping dismantle it as shown by the Toboso and Cauayan encounters.
The deaths of former activists-turned-NPA combatants RJ Ledesma, Alysa Alano, Maureen Santuyo, Errol Wendel Chen, Vince Francis Dingding, Fil-American Lyle Prijoles, American national Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, and other underground operatives now stand as undeniable proof of what government had warned about for years: the existence of a terror-grooming pipeline that systematically targets vulnerable youth, students, activists, and idealistic individuals, drawing them step by step into clandestine structures and eventually into armed violence and death.
For years, CTG-linked front organizations mocked these warnings and dismissed them as state propaganda. Today, the bodies recovered in Toboso and Cauayan expose the truth with brutal clarity.
These young individuals did not die pursuing peaceful reform or democratic engagement. They died carrying the burden of a failed violent ideology that manipulated their idealism and converted them into instruments of armed conflict.
Their deaths particularly exposed the tragic trajectory long observed in Negros: immersion into ideological circles, gradual normalization of underground activity, isolation from democratic processes, and eventual absorption into armed structures where death becomes romanticized as revolutionary sacrifice. This is not activism.
Time and again, we say, this is exploitation disguised as advocacy. No more, no less.
The tactical defeats in Negros also exposed the dishonesty of CTG-linked front organizations locally and abroad that repeatedly attempted to portray armed combatants as innocent civilians while concealing the underground machinery operating behind their narratives. Fi****ms were recovered. Identities were established. Despite the odds, forensic science still proved that the CPP-NPA-NDF, their enablers and purveyors were lying to their teeth. Their propaganda collapsed under the weight of facts.
The NTF-ELCAC believes that certain CPP and NDF leaders refuse to accept this historic defeat, not only in Negros but all over the country, because the collapse of the armed movement also means the collapse of the machinery that has sustained their power, influence, and comfortable existence for decades. Once the armed struggle disappears, so does the justification for the international fundraising networks, foreign solicitations, ideological campaigns, and financial pipelines built around the conflict. This translates to millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.
For too long, young recruits died in mountains, safehouses, and encounter sites while senior communist figures remained far removed from the suffering they imposed on others. Ordinary members endured hunger, isolation, fear, and death while leaders operated from secure urban environments or foreign locations, insulated from the violence they glorified.
The false revolution increasingly became a business model sustained by perpetual conflict, emotional manipulation, and the monetization of grievance.
Internal propaganda mechanisms kept recruits psychologically chained to the movement. Narratives of martyrdom, victimhood, and endless revolution were weaponized to maintain obedience, suppress dissent, and continuously generate sympathy, donations, and international support. The movement survived not because it uplifted the people, but because it learned how to commercialize conflict and weaponize suffering.
They earned a living from the deaths of their comrades.
But the people of Negros have grown more resilient over time and already rejected that deception. Communities are now embracing peace, reintegration, local governance, economic recovery, and development. The continuing gains toward Stable Internal Peace and Security (SIPS) status, the dismantling of guerrilla fronts, and persona non grata declarations against the CPP-NPA-NDF across localities in Negros all reflect a powerful reality: the insurgency has lost not only territory, but moral and political ground.
Negros is no longer a symbol of insurgency. It is becoming a symbol of change and recovery. The old chapter of armed deception, terror-grooming, spy-tagging killings, ideological abuse, and wasted lives is closing before the eyes of the nation.
A new chapter has already begun โ one defined not by fear and violence, but by unity, peace, democratic space, and development. No amount of propaganda, gaslighting, or manufactured outrage can reverse that truth anymore.
Mabuhay ang Negros!
Usec. Ernesto C. Torres Jr.
Executive Director
NS, NTF-ELCAC
๐ก๐ฒ๐ด๐ฟ๐ผ๐ ๐ง๐๐ฟ๐ป๐ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฃ๐ฃ-๐ก๐ฃ๐-๐ก๐๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฉ๐ถ๐ผ๐น๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) believes that the recent encounters in Toboso and Cauayan, Negros Occidental, have finally shattered the illusion of the so-called armed revolution in Negros. What remains visible today are not heroic narratives, but the ruins of a violent movement that consumed generations of Negrenses through deception, terror-grooming, spy-tagging killings, fear, and ideological exploitation.
For decades, Negros became vulnerable to communist agitation because of undeniable social inequities, agrarian tensions, and poverty. But history has now delivered its verdict. While Negrenses demanded justice, reform, and dignity, they ultimately rejected violence as the path toward change. The armed struggle did not liberate Negros. It buried its youth, terrorized its communities, and wasted countless futures.
The April 19 encounter in Barangay Salamanca, Toboso, where 19 armed CTG members were neutralized, marked a decisive collapse of the remaining terrorist infrastructure in Northern Negros. Among those killed was Roger Fabillar, long identified by security forces and local communities as among the most feared CTG figures in the area.
The operation exposed not merely an armed unit, but the dying remnants of a movement already abandoned and despised by the very people it falsely claimed to represent.
What proved even more revealing was the disclosure of 3rd Infantry Division Commander Major General Michael Samson that local officials, barangay leaders, and ordinary residents themselves pleaded with authorities to finally end the reign of terror of Fabillar and other CTG remnants. Communities had grown exhausted from intimidation, extortion, executions, coercion, and fear.
The people of Negros were no longer protecting the insurgency. They were helping dismantle it as shown by the Toboso and Cauayan encounters.
The deaths of former activists-turned-NPA combatants RJ Ledesma, Alysa Alano, Maureen Santuyo, Errol Wendel Chen, Vince Francis Dingding, Fil-American Lyle Prijoles, American national Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, and other underground operatives now stand as undeniable proof of what government had warned about for years: the existence of a terror-grooming pipeline that systematically targets vulnerable youth, students, activists, and idealistic individuals, drawing them step by step into clandestine structures and eventually into armed violence and death.
For years, CTG-linked front organizations mocked these warnings and dismissed them as state propaganda. Today, the bodies recovered in Toboso and Cauayan expose the truth with brutal clarity.
These young individuals did not die pursuing peaceful reform or democratic engagement. They died carrying the burden of a failed violent ideology that manipulated their idealism and converted them into instruments of armed conflict.
Their deaths particularly exposed the tragic trajectory long observed in Negros: immersion into ideological circles, gradual normalization of underground activity, isolation from democratic processes, and eventual absorption into armed structures where death becomes romanticized as revolutionary sacrifice. This is not activism.
Time and again, we say, this is exploitation disguised as advocacy. No more, no less.
The tactical defeats in Negros also exposed the dishonesty of CTG-linked front organizations locally and abroad that repeatedly attempted to portray armed combatants as innocent civilians while concealing the underground machinery operating behind their narratives. Fi****ms were recovered. Identities were established. Despite the odds, forensic science still proved that the CPP-NPA-NDF, their enablers and purveyors were lying to their teeth. Their propaganda collapsed under the weight of facts.
The NTF-ELCAC believes that certain CPP and NDF leaders refuse to accept this historic defeat, not only in Negros but all over the country, because the collapse of the armed movement also means the collapse of the machinery that has sustained their power, influence, and comfortable existence for decades. Once the armed struggle disappears, so does the justification for the international fundraising networks, foreign solicitations, ideological campaigns, and financial pipelines built around the conflict. This translates to millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.
For too long, young recruits died in mountains, safehouses, and encounter sites while senior communist figures remained far removed from the suffering they imposed on others. Ordinary members endured hunger, isolation, fear, and death while leaders operated from secure urban environments or foreign locations, insulated from the violence they glorified.
The false revolution increasingly became a business model sustained by perpetual conflict, emotional manipulation, and the monetization of grievance.
Internal propaganda mechanisms kept recruits psychologically chained to the movement. Narratives of martyrdom, victimhood, and endless revolution were weaponized to maintain obedience, suppress dissent, and continuously generate sympathy, donations, and international support. The movement survived not because it uplifted the people, but because it learned how to commercialize conflict and weaponize suffering.
They earned a living from the deaths of their comrades.
But the people of Negros have grown more resilient over time and already rejected that deception. Communities are now embracing peace, reintegration, local governance, economic recovery, and development. The continuing gains toward Stable Internal Peace and Security (SIPS) status, the dismantling of guerrilla fronts, and persona non grata declarations against the CPP-NPA-NDF across localities in Negros all reflect a powerful reality: the insurgency has lost not only territory, but moral and political ground.
Negros is no longer a symbol of insurgency. It is becoming a symbol of change and recovery. The old chapter of armed deception, terror-grooming, spy-tagging killings, ideological abuse, and wasted lives is closing before the eyes of the nation.
A new chapter has already begun โ one defined not by fear and violence, but by unity, peace, democratic space, and development. No amount of propaganda, gaslighting, or manufactured outrage can reverse that truth anymore.
Mabuhay ang Negros!
Usec. Ernesto C. Torres Jr.
Executive Director
NS, NTF-ELCAC
