Four RHB guerrillas slain in firefight

STA. ANA, Pampanga — Four suspected members of the communist breakaway group Rebo—lusyonaryong Hukbo ng Bayan (RHB), three of them women, were killed in a firefight with elements of the 69th Infantry Battalion here last Saturday night.

Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, the military’s North Luzon unified commander, said the members of the 69th IB rushed to Barangay San Roque after intelligence operatives of the 7th Infantry Division informed them of the presence of armed rebels in the village near this town’s boundary with Arayat.

Details on the incident were scant, but Garcia said the rebels were probably on "foraging operation" in the barangay.

The identities of the slain guerrillas were not immediately available. But Garcia said the three amazons were probably 25 to 28 years old, while their male companion was about 35 years old.

Soldiers found an M-653 or a baby Armalite in their possession.

The RHB is the armed unit of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the Philippines (MLPP) which severed ties with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 1998.

Since then, the RHB has been in stiff rivalry with the CPP’s military arm, the New People’s Army, in winning popular support and in extorting from ordinary folk and businessmen.

Garcia said there are about 1,800 armed communist rebels in Central Luzon, about 300 of them belonging to the RHB and the rest to the NPA. — Ding Cervantes, Benjie Villa and Christina Mendez