DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / July 9, 2014) – Six policemen and a soldier were wounded in a firefight with communist rebels in two villages in Davao City in southern Philippines, officials said Wednesday.
Capt. Alberto Caber, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command, said the fighting erupted in the villages of Baracatan and Catigan in Toril District on Tuesday afternoon.
Caber said soldiers from the 84th Infantry Battalion and members of the Special Action Force clashed with about 30 New People’s Army rebels. The fighting, he said, lasted around 30 minutes. He said the wounded policemen and soldier were evacuated to hospital. “The troops were on a security patrol in the area for the protection of the civilians and community,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said regional military chief Lt. Gen. Ricardo Rainier Cruz III has ordered army commanders to stay vigilant and continue the operations against the NPA and any other threat groups. “Joint pursuit operations are still ongoing,” he said.
The regional police command identified the wounded officers as Inspectors Ruel Manga, 35, Verindo Villamor, 24, PO3 Arthur Saavedra, 39, PO3 James Bnagayan, 29, PO1 Vincent Catalvas, 26 and PO1 John Ambog, 30.
Police spokesman Chief Inspector Jed Clamor said four of the policemen were undergoing treatment at Southern Philippines Medical Center while two others were observed in stable condition at Davao Adventist Hospital.
But Isabel Fermiza, a rebel spokesperson, said the NPA forces ambushed the government patrol and killing 6 troops and wounded six others in the area. Fermiza said rebel forces also seized an automatic rifle, one M203 grenade launcher, four military packs and vests, two ammunition links for K3 machine gun and a GPS.
“New People’s Army members under the Mt. Apo Sub-regional Command lured company-sized soldiers of the 84th Infantry Battalion of the 10th Infantry Division to the guerrilla hideout and Red fighters merely sidestepped and mounted an ambush position. The NPA’s successful tactical offensive in Toril, Davao City disproved hallucinations of AFP’s 10th Infantry Division Commanding-General Maj. Gen. Ariel Bernardo, who boasted last week that the NPA forces are thinning out, losing ground, and limited to merely seven towns in Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley provinces.”
“The successful ambush also refuted AFP claims late last year that their Peace and Development Outreach Program made headways in Toril and the contiguous Sta. Cruz town, enough to make these areas “NPA-free,” Fermiza said, adding, Bernardo’s claims of accomplishment were merely “to justify the huge and heavily purloined AFP budget and the funds funnelled from mining and capitalists that finance the ongoing massive military operations in Southern Mindanao.”
Fermiza also accused the military as behind extra-judicial killings of civilians, torture and intimidation.“The AFP has miserably failed not only to debilitate the fighting capacity of the NPA but also failed to ease the discontent of the masses. The AFP’s dismal record contains increasing head count not of NPA members but of civilian victims of extra-judicial killings, torture and intimidation.”
“On the other hand, the NPA’s successful tactical offensive in Toril, Davao City was not only due to its mastery in guerrilla warfare, but also due to the wide and warm support of the masses who are not fooled by the AFP’s Peace and Development Outreach Program,” Fermiza said.
Caber denied all Fermiza’s allegations and branded them as black propaganda. “These are all black propaganda and the rebels are the number one human rights violator. They attacked and killed innocent civilians in the pursuit of a senseless war,” he said.
The NPA is fighting for decades now for the establishment of a communist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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