Negros killings

The Negros killings refer to a series of targeted assassinations carried out by unidentified gunmen in the Philippine provinces of Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental. Many victims were suspected communists, sympathizers, farmers, or land reform activists. According to the Defend Negros Movement, the first recorded extrajudicial killing on Negros Island was Alexander Ceballos on January 20, 2017, and the group alleges at least 84 people have been killed since then. Human Rights Watch has linked violence in the region to conflicts over landlessness and land reform.

On October 20, 2018, gunmen killed nine sugarcane farmers, including four women and two children, members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, while they ate dinner in a makeshift tent in Sagay, Negros Occidental. On December 27, 2018, three armed men killed a member of the Isugan family in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental, reportedly due to the family's involvement in a peasant organization; their house was later burned down. Following escalating violence, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea signed Memorandum Order No. 32 on November 23, 2018, under President Rodrigo Duterte, deploying additional troops to Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Samar, and the Bicol Region, but killings continued afterward.

In 2019, violence intensified further. On March 30, simultaneous police operations in three Negros Oriental municipalities left 14 people dead and 12 arrested; police and the CIDG said the dead were members of the New People's Army who resisted arrest, while Karapatan and farmers' groups Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura and the National Federation of Sugar Farmers said the victims were farmers and habal-habal drivers. The provincial police director and three officers were relieved from duty, and multiple human rights bodies and officials called for investigations. In July 2019, a wave of killings occurred, including an ambush that killed four police officers in Ayungon, the killing of lawyer Anthony Trinidad in Guihulngan, and the killings of school principal Arthur Bayawa, his sister Ardale Bayawa, barangay chairman Romeo Alipan, Canlaon City Councilor Ramon Jalandoni, former mayor Edsel Enardecido, his cousin Leo Enardecido, and barangay chair Ernesto Posadas, among others. Killings continued in 2020, including of NFSW member Jose "Jerry" Catalogo, church worker and paralegal Zara Alvarez, and Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband. In November 2022, poet and peace consultant Ericson Acosta and peasant organizer Joseph Jimenez were killed in Kabankalan City; Karapatan stated they were captured alive before being reported by the military as casualties of an armed encounter, prompting a Commission on Human Rights probe.

Responses to the killings have been sharply divided. PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde deployed Special Action Force commandos and suggested the CPP-NPA could be responsible for propaganda purposes, while the CPP accused military, police, and paramilitary forces of orchestrating the attacks. The Commission on Human Rights and human rights group Karapatan called for investigations and linked the killings to government operations including Memorandum Order 32. Senators, bishops, and other officials have publicly condemned the violence, and no comprehensive resolution or accountability has been publicly documented across the case as a whole.