NPA guerrillas raid Samar mayor’s house

CATBALOGAN, Samar — Some 30 heavily armed men, believed to be New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas, swooped down on the house of a municipal mayor last Friday evening and burned two vehicles when they could not find the mayor and her husband there.

The band of rebels, including two amazons, were reportedly looking for board member-elect Felix Babalcon Jr., husband of re-elected Paranas Mayor Elvira Babalcon, to make him answer some charges.

The military said the raiders were led by a certain Ben Royo alias Kid/Alas of the NPA’s Jovito Ragay Command.

Mayor Babalcon ran unopposed in the recent elections. Her husband topped the provincial board race in the province’s second district.

The rebels, according to reports reaching the 8th Infantry Division based in Barangay Maulong here, burned an L-300 van and a red Sedan.

Witnesses told The STAR that Mayor Babalcon was resting on a hammock in a dimly lit corner of a separate reception building adjacent to their residence, when the rebels came.

She hastily entered their residence and hid when she heard that armed men were inquiring about her whereabouts, the witnesses said.

Luckily, the mayor’s husband, a three-term Paranas mayor, was in the town proper during the raid. He returned home only after he was told that the guerrillas had left and that the police and the military had been alerted.