PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 14, 2014) – A policeman was wounded in a gun battle Wednesday after he fought off 6 suspected communist rebels who attacked him outside his house in the southern Philippines, officials told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Officials said Senior Police Officer 4 Eleazar Carcallas was heading home alone when he was in the town of Tigbao in Zamboanga del Sur province.
The gunmen, who split into two groups, waited for Carcallas outside his house and attacked him with pistols and submachine guns, but the officer managed to fight back until the rebels fled.
“SPO4 Carcallas is a brave policeman and he managed to fight off his attackers, who are believed to be members of the New People’s Army, out to kill him. We have tightened security not only in the town, but the whole province as well because of this attack,” said Senior Inspector Joseph Ortega, a regional police spokesman.
He said Carcallas was shot in the leg and chin and rushed to hospital in Pagadian City.
It was not the first time rebels attack a policeman in Tigbao town. On April 2012, dozens of communist rebels also stormed the town’s police headquarters and carted weapons and took one policeman Juhali Faisal hostage in their escape.
The attack on Carcallas came two days after rebels also clashed with troops in the village of Bal-ason in Gingoog City.
Two rebels were killed in the fighting and soldiers recovered 2 automatic rifles, according to Captain Alberto Caber, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command.
The NPA has been fighting for decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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