CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / July 25, 2014) – Four soldiers were wounded and a still undetermined number of communist rebels had been killed and wounded in a clash in the town of Quezon in Bukidnon, an army spokesman said Saturday.
Capt. Alberto Caber, a spokesman for the Eastern Mindanao Command, said the fighting broke out Friday afternoon in the village of Cawayan after patrolling troops encountered a group of New People’s Army rebels, sparking a firefight.
Caber said troops were deployed to the village after residents sought the military’s help to stop the extortion activities of rebels in the area. “The soldiers were on security patrol to protect the people and communities from NPA harassment and extortion activities,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Rainier Cruz III, the regional military chief, ordered troops to pursue the rebels.
“The order of General Cruz is to track down the rebels, pursue them until they are captured and brought to justice. There is no other way for rebel forces to escape the law, except to surrender peacefully,” Caber said.
The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been fighting for decades for the establishment of a separate state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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