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BAGUIO CITY — An Army lieutenant and seven of his men were killed by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels at 6:30 a.m. yesterday while they were guarding a highway in Abra where vehicles carrying ballots from a remote town would be passing.

Three other soldiers were wounded in the ensuing shootout and were taken to hospital for treatment.

The Army said 40 NPA rebels attacked the 11-man platoon led by Lt. Mark Evan Onrubia in an attempt to snatch the ballots from Barangay Bauayan in Boliney, Abra before they could be delivered to the municipal hall for canvassing.

“The NPAs were conducting a road blockade intended to snatch the ballots in order to favor an unidentified candidate who allegedly paid large sums to the NPA as his permit-to-win fees, but the troops managed to prevent them,” said Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres Jr., Army spokesman and chief of public affairs.

The soldiers were under orders from Lt. Col. Raul Bautista, Army 41st Infantry Battalion commander, to clear the highway from Manabo to Boliney of any armed threat, he added.

Torres said Army reinforcements later caught up with some of the retreating NPA rebels, sparking another clash, but there was no immediate report of new casualties.

Two helicopter gunships were on standby to help pursue the guerrillas, he added.

Senior Inspector Dennis Agno, a Regional Police Mobile Group commander in Luba town, said troops and policemen engaged the NPA attackers in a running gunbattle, and that fighting continued well into the night.

However, 100 NPA rebels had attacked Onrubia and his men, not 40 as the Army had reported, he added.

Agno said he and other police officers had passed near the scene of the first clash while escorting Commission on Elections personnel to another town and heard gunshots erupting everywhere.

“We heard volleys of gunfire in that area, and we were told by villagers that at least seven soldiers had died in the fighting,” he said.

“There may have been more casualties because the firefight continued to rage there.”

Agno said they did not stop to help the soldiers because there already were Army reinforcements in the area, and he could not abandon the Comelec personnel.

Security forces had been warned of possible communist NPA attacks in Abra intended to disrupt the elections, he added.

Army and police forces had been sent to Abra, which has been the scene of deadly clashes linked to intense electoral rivalries.

Election-related violence has killed 126 people nationwide since campaigning began in January, police said.

However, most of the violence has been blamed on private armies hired by politicians, not NPA rebels.

The NPA in the Cordilleras and Ilocos Region had threatened to attack soldiers to frustrate an alleged military plan to rig the election results in favor of pro-administration candidates.

On May 13, the NPA killed three soldiers and wounded several others in Bontoc town, Mountain Province. – With Jaime Laude, Cecille Suerte Felipe, AP