PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 26, 2012) – Communist rebels attacked an army detachment and wounded a soldier in the southern Philippine province of Misamis Occidental, officials said on Sunday.
Officials said the weekend attack occurred in the village of Upper Potongan in Concepcion town. “New People’s Army rebels fired on the detachment and (it) sparked a fire fight that left one soldier wounded,” Capt. Albert Caber, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said it was not immediately known how many rebels were killed or wounded in the fighting.
He said regional army commander, Maj. Gen. Ricardo Rainier Cruz III, ordered all troops and pro-government militias manning detachments in the province to stay alert following the attack.
“We should stay alert and vigilant at all times and continue the Bayanihan efforts so that peace and development may progress and protect the people and the communities from threats posed by rebels,” Caber said, quoting Cruz.
Caber was referring to Oplan Bayanihan, the Aquino administration’s counter-insurgency program, touted by state security forces as a shift from conventional armed military operations to civil-military efforts aimed to thwart the communist armed struggle.
The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, is fighting for decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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