Black Hawk and ATAK helicopters swooped overhead and began firing into the mountains on an early February afternoon. Farmers tilling crops and tending their water buffalo ran for cover, taking shelter as the helicopters strafed the area. In a nearby town square, onlookers recorded with their phones, gasping as explosions ripped across the horizon. A Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter later made rounds in the area, witnesses said, as soldiers sequestered farmers in shelters. They were kept from their farms for weeks as their harvest wilted and died.
It’s a scene that has become a monthly occurrence in the rural Philippines, beginning in early 2023 and continuing today. The military said it was pursuing rebels from the communist New People’s Army (NPA), a designated terrorist group active since 1969, when Jose Maria Sison founded the New People’s Army—a Maoist group waging an armed rebellion primarily based in rural areas. The military and NPA have been in conflict ever since, despite several rounds of failed peace talks, most recently in 2023.
But since 2023, the Philippine military has started using advanced attack helicopters and fighter jets supplied wholly, or in part, by the United States, in a rapid escalation of counterinsurgency operations that have tormented rural communities and led to numerous potential international humanitarian law violations that could trigger policies preventing U.S. military aid, according to dozens of witnesses and experts who spoke to Drop Site News.
Washington says it is arming its ally to defend against Chinese aggression, but the U.S.-manufactured helicopters have so far been used solely on domestic targets.
The NPA’s numbers have dwindled: the military says it has about 1,500 members, although the NPA claims to have far more. The counterinsurgency continues to act as a cover for military and government officials to quash local resistance to infrastructure projects, according to scores of allegations by local and international human rights groups.
Filipino state officials are frequently accused of “red-tagging,” or falsely labeling activists and political opponents as communist rebels. Several “red-tagged” activists have been killed in suspicious circumstances and with no investigations into their deaths, such as Zara Alvarez, a legal worker who was shot dead in a crowded public square in 2020. Others have been kidnapped, such as youth activists Jolina Castro and Jhed Tamano, who disappeared in 2023 before resurfacing and accusing the military of forcing them to falsely surrender as communist rebels.
In March, an FA-50 jet crashed in the country’s southern mountains on an apparent counterinsurgency mission, killing both pilots. Days earlier, Black Hawk helicopters strafed Indigenous communities in the central island of Mindoro, according to the Manila-based human rights group Karapatan.
Karapatan has recorded at least 22 aerial bombings in the rural Philippines since February 2, 2023. That’s when the then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Manila and announced a milestone agreement for U.S. troops to use four additional military bases in the Philippines, strategically facing the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
On the same day, the Philippine military used helicopters purchased in U.S.-sanctioned arms transfers to launch airstrikes against insurgents in remote areas of northern Luzon, adjacent to three of the bases set to be used by the U.S. military, sending farmers in the rural municipality of Baggao fleeing from their fields.
The farmers ran to the town square of Birao, where they sheltered for several days. They were forbidden from accessing their farms for more than one month, causing them to lose an entire harvest. Each family was given about $85 as compensation by the regional social welfare bureau. “It wasn’t enough,” said Rosario Anban, a farmer. “We couldn’t get to our crops because we were scared.”
The military used white phosphorus during its aerial operations in Baggao, according to rights groups, although it was seemingly far from civilian areas. The next month, the military dropped white phosphorus about a football field’s distance away from Gawaan Elementary School, according to multiple Gawaan residents who spoke to Drop Site.
The mostly Indigenous residents of Gawaan, a remote mountain town accessible only by a dirt motorcycle path, were not used to conflict. They rely on farming, loading vegetables onto jeepneys and selling them at market. In recent years, they have protested a planned dam project that would inundate the nearby Saltan River, flooding part of the valley where they live and farm.
Keep reading
Hellbound and Down 
You must be logged in to post a comment.