DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 22, 2012) – Communist rebels said they killed three government soldiers and wounded two more in an ambush in Davao City in the southern Philippines.
Tano Paragas, a spokesman for the New People’s Army, said the latest attack serves as a strong warning to the government that rebels would continue its offensive against the military in the restive region.
“The NPA’s military action serves as a strong warning to enemy troops engaging in offensive combat operation inside the guerrilla territories of the People’s Democratic Government. It also serves as fair warning to reactionary civilian authorities actively aiding the Philippine Army in its counter-revolutionary Oplan Bayanihan Operations,” he said, referring to the government’s anti-insurgency campaign in the country.
He said rebels blew up two military vehicles in Marilog district.
“Command-detonated explosives damaged the vehicles, killed three soldiers and wounded two others. The Army was quick to conceal from public the three fatalities to downplay the NPA’s successful offensive,” Paragas said in a statement sent Sunday to the Mindanao Examiner.
He also accused the military of interrogating civilians in Marilog where troops, from the 84th Infantry Battalion, have reportedly armed militias to fight the NPA.
“The 84th Infantry Battalion has stepped up its offensive operations in Marilog to pave the way for the land grabbing, anomalous sale and re-sale of farm lands of peasants and ancestral lands of Lumad Matigsalogs in Marilog district by the Mindanao Indigenous People’s Council for Peace and Development (MIPCPD) in connivance with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. The MIPCPD engages in quick money-making schemes designed to hoodwink unsuspecting hapless peasants of Marilog. They are aptly called tribal dealers, not tribal leaders,” Paragas said.
The military denied Paragas claim and said rebels attacked troops who were guarding health workers who were conducting humanitarian mission in the area. (Mindanao Examiner)
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