oct 29
COMPOSTELA VALLEY- Some 300 evacuees from faraway highland barangay of Manurigao in New Bataan started returning home by 3:00 yesterday afternoon since Sunday’s start of skirmishes between government troopers and communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.
Municipal information officer Marvin Ilajas said in text message that the evacuees who sought temporary refuge at the municipal gym have been returning home after the municipal disaster coordinating council in town declared the Manurigao area as already safe for the evacuees to return.
The evacuees since Monday trickled in to the town poblacion after eight government soldiers were killed in an ambush staged by the NPA rebels.
Ilajas said that during the evacuees’ temporary stay at the municipal gym Mayor Lorenzo Balbin Sr had to shell out funds from their limited resources for the rice, canned goods and other foodstuffs for the large number of evacuees.
He added that the Dept. of Social Welfare and Development, Cong. Manuel “Way Kurat” Zamora and Governor Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy had also chipped in provisions for the evacuees.
The military said Monday that the slain soldiers were on a humanitarian mission in the town when ambushed by the NPA rebels.
In emailed statements to the media, Rigoberto Sanchez, a regional spokesman for the New People’s Army (NPA), claimed that the ambushed soldiers were on a military operation and part of a bigger group deployed to track down NPA rebels in the province.
On Monday, NPA rebels launched separate attack to government soldiers in Monkayo resulting to the wouding of trooper Cpl. Robert Cabadocia of 66th Infantry Battalion.
The separate military report said the soldiers were bringing the body of a dead comrade to Sarangani province who died in Friday’s land mine attack when harassed by undetermined number of NPA rebels communists in Olaycon area in Monkayo.
Cpl. Cabadocia was the driver of the vehicle the soldiers were riding when they were ambushed by the NPAs, a military field report said.
The other soldiers on board the truck fired back, triggering a brief firefight with the rebels. However, there were no reports of rebel casualties during the brief gunbattle as the rebels immediately run away to nearby mountain.
Also on Sunday, undetermined number of communist rebels attacked a patrol base of the Army’s Special Forces Battalion in the village of Canidkid in neighboring Montevista town. The defending troops managed to foil the attack, a military field report said.
Col. Alan R. Luga, commanding officer of the Army’s 1003rd Infantry Brigade, is currently leading the big ground operation in “specified targets” of communist lairs in the province, said EastMincom spokesman Maj. Randolf Cabangbang on Monday.(Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News with reports from PNA)
Filed under: comval military, comval npa, new bataan, comval military, comval npa, new bataan
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