The Rano massacre occurred inside a small protestant church affiliated to the United Church of Christ of the Philippines in a tiny village of Rano, Barangay Binaton in Digos, Davao del Sur thirteen years ago, Of the 39 persons killed, two were beheaded. They were Pastor Ruben Ayap and his brother. The CPP-NPA-NDF hierarchy acknowledged responsibility for the killings and in the face of public revulsion to yet another confirmation of their ruthlessness, all they said are sorry and the promise for an investigation so that the guerrilla unit involved could face trial is until now remains a promise. They even hailed Amado Payot a.k.a Kumander Bensar, the leader of the Roque Magtanggol Command responsible for that carnage as a true-bloodied communist revolutionary committed enough to advanced the communist revolutions. (The once praised Bensar is now the communist subject of character assassination when he left the movement ten years later and joined the mainstream of our society.)
The reason for the massacre appears to be the widespread refusal of the village people into submission to the Maoist communist tyrannical rule that is common in the country side. Submission means cooperating and paying so called revolutionary taxation to the communist terrorists. This taxation has been going on for years, and has been a cruel burden to the poor in the mountains who sometimes have nothing to eat but root crops.
The Rano massacre was just a tip of an iceberg. In 1987, several members of the Philippine Independent Church (PICAVI Aglipayan) including its local priest who opposed the communists were also inside their chapel in the hinterlands of Paquibato District in Davao City. The NPA unit responsible for that carnage is the Meynardo Arce command led by Leonardo Pitao a.k.a Kumader Parago.
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