IN the wake of the spate of killings in Negros, President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the military to give the communist rebels 'tit for tat,' reiterating his plan to implement 'more severe measures' to address the country’s peace and order problems.

In his speech at the Mindanao-wide distribution of land certificates to agrarian reform beneficiaries in Davao City on Friday night, Duterte blamed the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), for the killings.