Reports reaching Camp Crame identified the fatalities as Cesar Bendigo, a certain Jun and Chinese trader Benjie Co.
The victims’ fourth companion, Robert Matunog, was reported missing and believed taken hostage by the rebels.
Reports said the victims were aboard a red Toyota pick-up truck on their way to Barangay Consuegra in Leyte town to deliver copra when they were waylaid by about 150 rebels in Barangay Wague at about 2 p.m.
The victims, the reports said, could have been mistaken for government troopers.
Soldiers who responded to the ambush site recovered hundreds of spent M-16 and M-14 shells. — Jaime Laude