Justice for Alano, Ledesma, and all victims of state violence

Every now and then, the state sheds its amiable, conciliatory facade to reveal its innately brutal, repressive core—whatever it takes to preserve the normalcy of the everyday brutality of capitalist social relations.

This is what happened in Toboso, Negros Occidental last Sunday, April 19: Faced with an armed movement that it is still unable to finally pacify, the Philippine state carried out a military offensive that killed 19 individuals, including University of the Philippines Diliman University Student Council member Alyssa Alano and journalist RJ Ledesma.

Such disproportionate violence was what happened on September 21 last year when, confronted with protesters who refused to stay within the boundaries of “legitimate” or state-sanctioned protest, the police unleashed its coercive apparatus on hundreds of minors and young adults in Mendiola, many of whom are still suffering from legal proceedings and trauma.

The AFP claims that the 79th infantry battalion adhered to international humanitarian law, however, footage uploaded freely online by eyewitnesses suggest that the military recklessly endangered civilian communities nearby and used disproportionate firepower to massacre 19 people. It is of no surprise to anyone that the ruling class does not follow their own laws, yet it is in the saying so that still matters.

We at Partido Sosyalista strongly condemn the killing of Alano, Ledesma, and all the other victims of military brutality in Toboso this past week, and we extend our condolences to their family, friends, comrades, and colleagues.

We join all those demanding justice for Alano, Ledesma, and all victims of military repression.

We call for the immediate redistribution of all large landholdings in Negros Occidental and across the country, along with all other measures necessary to address and resolve the real material grievances of those who take up arms against the government—grievances rooted in dispossession, superexploitation of labor and rents, the systematic extraction of value and metabolism from labor and from the land, and organized abandonment of those living in the countryside that systematically deprives them of dignified living.

More urgently, we call for the immediate cessation of all military offensives, complete demilitarization in Negros Occidental and across the country, and a return to peace negotiations with all groups currently being subjected to military aggression.

We declare our solidarity with all those who affirm the necessity of armed struggle in the face of state brutality under capitalist rule.