by Arcelita Imasa, MD
On April 19, 2026, 19 people were killed in a military operation in Toboso, Negros Occidental, in our beloved homeland, the Philippines. At least 167 families were displaced from their homes.
The Philippine military has framed the incident as a clash with communist rebels, but human rights groups, parliamentarians, and labor organizations describe it as a massacre, or possible massacre, involving peasant activists, youth, and other civilians.
For so many of us in the Filipino diaspora, Negros is not just a place on a map; it is the homeland of our families, relatives, and friends who may still be sugar workers, small farmers, or community organizers at risk.
As a Filipino activist in Hawaii, I support the Campaign for Justice for the Negros 19 with all my grieving and fighting heart, both because of my diaspora responsibility and because I condemn the US government’s direct complicity in what happened in Negros.
Negros has long symbolized extreme inequality in the Philippines: vast haciendas, foreign corporate interests, and land grabbing through projects such as so‑called solar farms, quarries, malls, and bottling plants that enrich landlords while leaving farmworkers and most of the region poor.
These patterns of land use and development have pushed peasants, workers, and communities to organize to defend their livelihoods and demand change, which I believe is only just.
For so many of us Filipinos in the diaspora, our country’s reality of poverty and corruption and stark inequality between the poor and the wealthy is deeply personal, not abstract. Negros is where our families come from, where our remittances go, and where loved ones may still be living in conditions shaped by these same political and economic forces.
The violence in Negros, and the conditions that perpetrate it is not only a domestic Philippine issue; it is entangled with US policy and funding.
The US government has authorized up to 500 million dollars a year in security and military assistance to the Philippines from 2026 to 2030, totaling 2.5 billion dollars over five years.
Through our taxes, US residents, including those of us living in Hawaii, are helping fund these operations and the broader counterinsurgency program in which they take place.
Our taxes end up funding the NTF-ELCAC, which is known for its brutal and inhumane practice of red-tagging and targeting those who oppose the unjust and anti-people policies of the Philippine government.
Our taxes helped fund the Duterte administration’s so‑called “war on drugs,” which claimed the lives of thousands of mostly poor Filipinos and has been widely condemned, even internationally, for grave human rights abuses.
US money has long played a role in war and repression around the world, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, and it now risks further enabling human rights abuses in the Philippines.
Our taxes are also being used to build US military bases in the Philippines, justified in the media as providing “security” against China’s aggression.
If US military aid, training, and political support help sustain Philippine counterinsurgency operations, then residents of the US and Hawaii have a responsibility to push for investigations into, and demand accountability for, the Negros 19 massacre.
It also means residents of the US and Hawaii have a responsibility to demand that aid to the Philippine state forces be cut.
I am speaking out against these killings of my fellow Filipinos and these grave human rights violations, and I join others in demanding an impartial probe into what happened in Negros.
I join others in building international pressure. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), in an April 29, 2026, statement, already condemned the operation and raised concerns about extrajudicial killings, red‑tagging, and abuses in counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines.
I stand with the international community in urging the Philippine government to allow independent investigations, stop red‑tagging of activists and community organizers, and curb abuses committed under the banner of “security.”
In the US and here in Hawaii, the struggle for justice for the Negros 19 is linked to other movements for demilitarization, dignity, and life.
Community campaigns are calling for an end to US military occupation of Hawaii, for the protection of the dignity and health of migrants, and for the redirection of public funds away from the military and ICE terror and toward essential public services such as health, housing, food security, and more.
As activists who desire the well-being of others, not just ourselves, we have a duty to support the struggles of people everywhere for their democratic rights and against systemic oppression, exploitation, and violations of human rights.
This is one of the ways we can help protect people on the ground in places like Negros: by amplifying their demands and refusing to let these killings pass in silence. In our own ways, through our actions, we make it clear that activism is not terrorism.
As a Filipino activist based in Hawaii, I see the victims of the Negros 19 as fellow peasants, youth, workers, and organizers, not “collateral damage.” They are not terrorists.
As an activist, I recognize that the US government is deeply entangled in Philippine militarization and is complicit in the human rights violations against my people.
Living in the diaspora means confronting that complicity and acting on it: by speaking out, organizing, and insisting that our communities and elected officials in Hawaii and across the US demand transparency, accountability, and justice for the Negros 19.
International solidarity is one of the few tools available to those of us far from home. Still, it can be powerful when we use it to insist that lives in Negros and everywhere are not expendable.
We should demand the protection of human lives and dignity anywhere we are.
We should demand justice for the Negros 19.
DR. ARCELITA IMASA is a practicing family physician and the secretary of the Hawaii Workers Center’s Executive Committee of the Board. She grew up in the Philippines before migrating to Hawaii with her family more than a decade ago.
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