NPA rebels ambush cops in Mountain Province

March 31, 2019 Community Billboard

BAGUIO CITY — New Peoples Army (NPA) guerillas surprised policemen on patrol in sitio Malabagan, Bangnen, in Bauko, Mt. Province on Friday morning for their “response to the directive of the National Operational Command of the (NPA) to launch military actions nationwide as part of the celebrations of the NPA’s 50^th year anniversary.”

Mt. Province-based Leonardo Pacsi Command spokesman Magno Udiao said communist guerillas “engaged” a unit of the Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPSB) which lasted for about 15-minutes believing to have killed at least one policeman.

The Cordillera police however believed a policeman was killed but admitted that Patrolman Wilfredo Padawil was wounded in the attack against members of the 1502nd Maneuver Company of Cordillera police’s Regional Mobile Force Battalion-15 (RMFB-15) led by Police Captain Graeme Boy Javier during the clash with more or less 20 rebels.

Policemen also believed some NPA rebels were wounded in the brief clash “based o blood tracking in the area”. Udiao said that the RPSB as a unit of the Philippine National Police (PNP) “is specifically intended for counterinsurgency,” citing that “through combat operations, its troops work alongside the Armed Forces of the Philippines(AFP).”

“As a counter revolutionary instrument of the ruling class, it serves as a machinery to silence the people’s resistance and also enforce national oppression on the national minorities including the Igorots of the Cordillera.”

Mountain Province rebels believe the RPSB “carries (this) mission in the guise of protecting the environment and national interest,” also claiming that, “the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in cahoots with these mercenary troops have been enforcing a total log ban policy and the crackdown on small-scale mines (while) they protect plunderous large scale mines, logging, and energy businesses.”

Udiao insisted that the indigenous people “have inherent rights to their ancestral lands and its resources including the trees, the minerals, and the waters.”

Abusive use of these resources sanctioned through customary laws are still being practiced by communities – through self regulation, he said.

But during operations of the DENR and PNP, Udiao claimed that “numerous cases of human rights violations are being committed, such as harassment, indiscriminate pointing and firing of rifles and confiscation of lumber intended for housing and community use,” adding further that “corruption is also rampant as DENR and police officials sell or take for personal use whatever they have sequestered from the locals.”

Udiao warned that “in the light of the Duterte government’s permanent withdrawal from peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the LPC will incessantly mount tactical offensives to continue the NPA’s mandate of seizing political power from the corrupt and fascist ruling classes and dismantling its fascist machinery, towards building a just, peaceful, and democratic government for the people.

Artemio Dumlao/ABN