NPAs strike again in S. Tagalog

SARIAYA, Quezon — While the government were making efforts to revive the stalled peace talks with communist rebels, the New People’s Army (NPA) in Southern Tagalog continued to be on an offensive.

Just three days after they attacked a power plant in Calaca, Batangas, killing four Air Force men, NPA rebels torched a bus of Jac Liner in Sariaya, Quezon last Wednesday afternoon.

In Sorsogon, local guerrillas admitted having shot and wounded an aide of Rep. Jose Solis while the lawmaker was attending the ground-breaking of one of his projects in a remote village in Gubat town last Jan. 8.

Senior Superintendent Leo Kison, Quezon police director, said the Jac Liner bus, with license plate TVF 399, was cruising the Maharlika Highway in Barangay Concepcion, Sariaya town at about 5:45 p.m. when nine of its passengers, who turned out to be rebels, pulled out their firearms and told the driver, Oscar Pedragoza, to drive on off the main road.

When they reached an interior barangay at least 100 meters away from the highway, the rebels, believed belonging to the NPA’s Melito Glor Command, were met by 20 more armed men.

They then instructed Pedragoza, conductor Leandro Lopez and the 28 passengers to disembark, after which they set the bus on fire.

Before they fled toward Mt. Banahaw, the guerrillas took the P3,000 collection of Lopez and divested a passenger-policeman, PO1 Sherwin Bonsol, of the 416th Provincial Mobile Group, of his caliber .45 service pistol.

Police said the bus company’s failure to pay "revolutionary tax" could have prompted the NPA arson.

In Batangas, two Air Force soldiers, part of a military group pursuing the rebel band which attacked the Calaca power plant, were wounded in a three-hour clash with guerrillas in Nasugbu, Batangas yesterday.

The military said a number of rebels were also wounded in the firefight.

Meanwhile, in a media statement, the NPA’s Romulo-Hallores Command, which operates in Albay and Sorsogon, admitted that the seven armed men who harassed the group of Rep. Solis in Barangay Union, Gubat town, are its cadres.

Solis, who represents the second congressional district of Sorsogon, was in the remote barangay for the ground-breaking of his project, when the rebels appeared and confronted him for entering the village without any NPA approval.

The NPA command reiterated this, saying that Solis should have first secured a permit-to-campaign before going to Barangay Union.

"Siya ay pumasok sa sonang gerilya upang tusong makauna sa pangangampanya (He entered a guerrilla zone to gain headway in the campaign)," its statement signed by spokesman Jose Buenaobra, said.

During the confrontation, the rebels shot and wounded Solis’ driver-aide Garry Guyala. Before fleeing, they took the solon’s two 9-mm. pistols, an Ingram and two cellular phones. — With Jaime Laude and Cet Dematera