NPAs kill 2 soldiers, student

LEGAZPI CITY — Two Army sergeants and a civilian were killed and three others were wounded when some 30 heavily armed new recruits of the New People’s Army (NPA) ambushed an Army vehicle yesterday morning along the Daang Maharlika in Daraga, Albay, the military said.

Col. Pendatun Guro, head of the Armed Forces’ Civil Relations Service at Camp Gen. Simeon Ola here, identified the fatalities as S/Sgt. Domingo Agnas, who was driving the Army vehicle; and Sgt. Perfecto Abarra, both belonging to the 202nd Infantry Brigade based in Villahermosa, Daraga town; and Sherly Hoganas, an 18-year-old first year nursing student at Aquinas University here.

Wounded were Sergeants Toribio Oray and Edwin Morosa, and Agnas’ wife Haynee.

Guro said the rebels, positioned on both sides of the highway, fired at the military vehicle with M-16 and M-14 rifles, after a grenade fired from an M-203 launcher missed the Army vehicle.

Quoting residents near the ambush site, Guro said the rebel attackers, who withdrew about 10 minutes after the ambush, were merely young NPA recruits.

Guro said the ambushers could just be on a "test" mission, which explains why their grenade missed the Army vehicle.— With Celso Amo