PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will no longer visit the plantation in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, where nine sugar workers were killed by unidentified armed men, MalacaƱang said on Tuesday, October 23.
"Due to inclement weather, [Duterte's] visit [to] Sagay will not push through. Thank you," Palace told reporters in an updated media advisory.
Duterte was initially scheduled to visit the wake of nine slain sugarcane workers in Sagay City at around 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, based on the media advisory sent to Palace reporters.
Earlier Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Duterte ordered probe into the mass killings of at least nine individuals who occupied the farm at Hacienda Nene in Bulanon village, Sagay City.
"The directive is to investigate it. That's why precisely he is going there to see the situation and condole with the families of the victims," he said.
The nine sugar workers, who were reportedly members of the Left-leaning organization National Federation of Sugarcane Workers, were shot dead while they were resting in a makeshift tent at the hancienda on the night of October 20.
Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao, regional director for the Western Visayas, raised the possibility that the communist insurgents are involved in the deaths of nine farm workers.
A total of P500,000 bounty has been put up to ensure the arrest of the people behind the killings of the sugarcane workers. (SunStar Philippines)