MANILA, Nov. 20 -- The government's anti-insurgency task force on Thursday condemned the recent killing of two civilians by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) rebels in the Negros Island Region (NIR).

In a statement, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said the deaths of Jomy Pelarta and Raul Loterio at the hands of the NPA show that the rebels' so-called "people's court" remains "nothing more than a mechanism for summary execution."

"[The killings] once again expose the group's longstanding pattern of targeting innocent civilians under the guise of so-called 'revolutionary justice'," the task force said.

NTF-ELCAC issued the statement after the NPA's Romeo Nanta Com...