DEFEND NEGROS ISLAND! JUSTICE FOR THE NEGROS 19!
Malaya Movement USA strongly condemns the Armed Forces of the Philippines' massacre of 19 and displacement of over 650 in Negros Occidental on April 19, 2026.
We reject the AFP's blatant lies that the 19 Filipinos killed were dangerous terrorists. We know the truth: that they were peasant activists, student leaders, media workers, and other community members whose only crime was serving the people of Negros when the Philippine government refused to.
We mourn the lives stolen from us by the fascist U.S.-Marcos regime– including Alyssa Alano, Errol Wendel, Maureen Keil Santuyo, and RJ Ledesma. Malaya members met RJ on the 2024 and 2025 immersion trips; his ability to help us understand the struggle of the Philippines for genuine human rights, sovereignty, and democracy will have a lasting impact on our mass movement.
RJ was only 30 years old when he was taken from us. Despite his youth, he had a certain discipline and diligence that made him seem decades wiser, having spent many years growing up in a militarized region. People who met him would describe him as soft-spoken, but when debriefing those on our immersion trips, he clearly laid out the situation in Negros with urgency and clarity, and talked about how our campaigns to cut US military aid to the Philippines and raise international solidarity were major contributions.
He told us Negros is a "microcosm of Philippine society": from the Spanish haciendas to the US's sugar quotas, Negros' rich land has always been plundered by imperialists and their local ruling allies to sell out to corporations, leaving the people starving and impoverished. He showed us how hacienda landlords and big US compradors continue to intensify their landgrabbing through fake solar energy, quarrying, SM malls, and Coca Cola factories.
It is an island thick with class struggle and emblematic of the country's basic root problems of U.S. imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. After years of de facto martial law and intense militarization, especially under the Duterte regime, the region's resolve in their just fight for land and life was clear.
RJ taught us how despite producing a crucial 60% of the country's sugar, the peasants of Negros suffer from enforced poverty, systemic famines, and targeted killings by the Philippine government. It is no wonder there is such rich, militant resistance in Negros.
When the peasants and workers organize for better lives, the U.S.-backed Marcos regime violently retaliates by occupying their homes, threatening farmers, tricking them into "surrendering" as "rebels," kidnapping them as political prisoners, and even torturing and killing them. This is state-sanctioned violence through policies like MO 32– a Duterte-era order that increasingly militarized the provinces of Negros, Bicol, and Samar – and Marcos' National Action Plan for Unity Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) policy, which further militarizes the government and its targeting of human rights defenders.
We learned from RJ and his work with AlterMidya the importance of uplifting the Filipino peoples true history. As Malaya Movement, we take seriously our role as an anti-fascist, pro-human rights organization to expose the US-Marcos regime's oppression of the people, and the widening peoples resistance for genuine freedom.
We will never forget those 19 people who were tragically taken away from us. RJ was a poet, photographer, and journalist. He was a storyteller who used his talents to bring light to the plight of peasants in Negros, and expose the violence and abuse perpetrated by the Philippine government. He exemplified the old saying,
Kapag namulat ka na, kasalanan ng pumikit
or, when your eyes are open to the truth, it is a sin to look away.
While he may be gone, his words, his legacy, and his vibrant spirit will live on forever in those he touched, and in the work we do, as Malaya, and as people of the Philippines.
Marcos Taksil! No UN platform for fascists! Sign the petition to oppose Marcos' UN Security Council bid: tinyurl.com/NoMarcosSeat
Plan vigils and other protest actions to commemorate the lives taken by the Marcos regime!
Fight BACK against Fascism! Join the Malaya Movement: malayamovement.com/join
Justice for RJ, Alysa, Errol, and Maureen! Justice for the Negros 19!
Defend Negros Island! Military out of the countryside! AFP-PNP Palayasin!
Stop funding war crimes with our tax dollars! End all US Aid to the Philippines!
Abolish the NTF-ELCAC!
Scrap the NAP-UPD and MO 32!
