We said we would learn from that.
Yet today, in a different terrain and under a different justification, we are confronted with a disturbingly familiar pattern. In a military operation in Negros Occidental, 19 individuals were reported killed, including two identified student leaders: RJ Nichole Ledesma, former editor-in-chief of Spectrum of the University of St. La Salle, and Alyssa Alano, a student councilor from the University of the Philippines.
The Philippine Army has since asserted that the operation targeted remnants of the communist New People’s Army, and more specifically, that Alyssa Alano was armed and actively participating in hostilities during the encounter. This is a serious claim. If true, it materially changes how the incident is to be understood under the law.
But it does not end the discussion.
Because between competing claims, whether of civilian status or armed participation, lies not just a factual dispute, but a fundamental test of principle.
The question is not simply whether the individuals were rebels or civilians. The deeper issue is this: What standard of truth do we require before the state takes a life, and after it has done so?
Under international humanitarian law, the rules are clear. Combatants, or civilians directly participating in hostilities, may be lawfully targeted. If the victims were indeed armed and actively engaged in combat, then the use of lethal force may fall within the bounds of lawful military action.
But this legal permissibility hinges on fact, not assertion. And in situations where the state is both the source of the claim and the wielder of force, the evidentiary burden must be even higher, not lower.
The determination that a person is a combatant, or a civilian directly participating in hostilities, is not something that can rest solely on the word of the operating unit. It must be established through credible, verifiable evidence. Otherwise, the classification itself becomes vulnerable to abuse.
This is where the problem persists.
During the drug war, the justification was behavioral: the suspect “fought back.” In this case, the justification is operational: that the individual was armed and fighting. The language is different, the context is different, but the structural risk is the same: that the state’s narrative becomes both the claim and the conclusion.
If we are to be consistent, then we must apply the same standard across contexts.
If we demand proof before accepting “nanlaban” as justification for police killings, then we must demand proof when the military claims that an individual was armed and engaged in combat. Otherwise, we are not defending a principle. We are selectively applying it.
This is precisely why there is an urgent need for independent investigation.
Were firearms recovered, and if so, are they forensically linked to the individuals identified? What do ballistic reports show? Were there independent witnesses beyond the military unit, or the armed rebels themselves? What do autopsy results indicate about the nature of the encounter? Were there signs consistent with a firefight, or inconsistencies that raise questions?
These are not technicalities. They are the minimum requirements of accountability.
The Commission on Human Rights must investigate. Congress, if necessary, must exercise its oversight powers. Civil society must insist on transparency. This is not about undermining the military. It is about ensuring that the use of lethal force, especially in contested circumstances, meets the highest standard of scrutiny.
Because even if the state is ultimately proven correct, that correctness must be demonstrated, not presumed.
There is also a broader implication that cannot be ignored. When individuals who are publicly known as students, researchers, or activists are killed in military operations, even under claims of armed participation, the impact extends beyond the immediate incident. It raises questions about how individuals are classified, how intelligence is validated, and whether certain forms of civic engagement are being viewed through a security lens. Even the perception of misclassification, if left unaddressed, can erode trust not only in specific operations but in the institutional credibility of the armed forces as a whole.
These concerns do not prove wrongdoing. But they make investigation all the more necessary.
This is not about denying the existence of armed insurgency. Nor is it about stripping the state of its right to defend itself. The state has both the authority and the obligation to confront armed threats.
But that authority is bound by law. And the law does not allow the state to be the sole judge of its own actions.
The lesson from the drug war was not simply that abuses occurred. It was that unchecked narratives accepted without evidence can normalize the irreversible. Once that logic takes hold, it does not remain confined to one policy or one type of operation. It migrates. It adapts. It reappears under different justifications.
We cannot allow that pattern to repeat.
If the victims were indeed armed and fighting, then that must be proven through evidence that withstands independent scrutiny. If they were not, then the consequences are grave. Either way, the truth cannot be left to assertion.
Because in matters of life and death, the state does not get to be both accuser and final arbiter.
The deaths in Negros Occidental are real. Nineteen lives lost demand more than competing narratives. They demand verification. We owe it to the dead not to prematurely declare innocence or guilt but to insist that the full measure of legal and factual scrutiny be applied. Because if we allow the standard of truth to shift depending on who is killed and under what justification, then we have learned nothing.
And we will find ourselves, once again, living with the consequences of that failure.
The author is a professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and vice chairman of state-run PTVNI.
