This, as an RHB guerrilla, identified only as Ka Francis, was killed and seven of his comrades, including four amazons, were captured during a firefight with Army soldiers at about 1 a.m. yesterday in Sitio Bakbakan, Barangay Sumandig here.
Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, commanding officer of the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom), said elements of the 56th Infantry Battalion’s Alpha Company, led by Lt. Joel Vento, and the 66th Infantry Battalion encountered some 16 RHB guerrillas in Sitio Bakbakan.
The military seized from the rebels three M-16 rifles, several shotguns, a caliber .45 pistol and a handgrenade.
Garcia said the NPA and the RHB "hate each other’s guts" so they squeal to the military on each other.
"Both sides feed the military with information that works to our advantage, and the information we got led to the encounters we had with both groups in Sta. Ana, Mabalacat and Magalang in Pampanga recently," he said.
Both the NPA and the RHB, however, issued separate statements yesterday, debunking the military’s version of what happened in Sta. Ana town where four suspected RHB members were killed last Nov. 9.
The NPA’s Palermo Ortañez Command said the four were killed in a clash with the NPA and that elements of the 69th IB rushed to the site to help the RHB which, it claimed, is a paramilitary group of the government.
The RHB, for its part, said its guerrillas and the 69th IB were the ones who shot it out in Sta. Ana.
Garcia said the military is winning the war against both armed communist groups, adding that its recent operations have reduced their forces from 1,800 to 1,600.
"Of this number, about 1,100 are in Central Luzon, some 800 of them belonging to the NPA and the rest to the RHB," he said.
He said both groups compete with each other in collecting so-called "revolutionary taxes" mostly from agricultural businessmen in remote and even urban areas.
"Our estimate is that both groups collect about P5 million to P10 million annually," he said.
Garcia said one Caridad Magpantay heads the NPA in Central Luzon, and the RHB is led by one Luisito de la Cruz.
He said about 343 barangays in Central Luzon are "affected" by the communist rebels. "This is only about five percent of over 1,900 barangays in the region, and that is not significant," he said. — With James Mananghaya, Ric Sapnu and Benjie Villa