The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on Wednesday strongly condemned the New People’s Army (NPA) after the rebel group claimed responsibility for killing a civilian it accused of being a government informant.

The victim, Momarlito Alingasa, was shot and killed in Calatrava, Negros Occidental, after the communist armed group publicly accused him of being a police and military intelligence asset.

Task force officials described the NPA’s public admission as a chilling confession that demonstrates how the group continues to execute citizens outside the bounds of law and human rights.

Undersecretary Ernesto Torres Jr., the executive director of the task force, said the incident highlights the deadly practice of “spy-tagging” — the branding of individuals as military or police collaborators before targeting them for assassination. Torres noted that Negros Island has emerged as the country’s epicenter for these specific types of killings.

Task force data monitoring NPA-initiated killings of civilians from 2021 through May 2026 shows that 51 of the 59 recorded spy-tagging executions nationwide occurred on Negros Island.

Of those regional deaths, 41 were recorded in Negros Occidental and 10 in Negros Oriental.

The violence has intensified recently, with 49 of those victims killed between January 2025 and May 2026 alone.

Torres said the figures reveal a disturbing pattern where mere allegations by the communist group become death sentences carried out without evidence or judicial scrutiny.

He also pointed to what he called a double standard by the insurgent group and its affiliate organizations, noting that while they frequently denounce the government for “red-tagging,” the rebels themselves engage in a far more lethal form of labeling.

Torres stressed that spy-tagging has historically served as a direct death sentence against ordinary civilians throughout the history of the communist insurgency.