Chief Superintendent Dionisio Coloma Jr., Eastern Visayas police director, said Senior Inspector Arnulfo Gerenilla, the town’s police chief, and his three men — PO1s Noel Capales, Cris Advincula and Artemio Rebato — put up a fight and were wounded in the gunbattle that lasted for more than an hour.
Also wounded in the clash were Marrife Docel, 20, and Ronnie Losada, a 23-year-old Manobo.
Coloma admitted that the municipal police station was undermanned, but said he was glad that Gerenilla and his three men who were on duty during the 4:30 a.m. raid, took a gallant stand in protecting their headquarters. San Jose de Buan has only 15 policemen.
The wounded policemen said Army reinforcements from about a kilometer away arrived late because the rebels, led by Amado Delantar and Naning Laboc, had blocked roads leading to the town proper.
Advincula said he and the residents saw four rebels killed in the firefight.
Last year, the NPA attacked the police stations of Calbiga, Samar and Quinapondan, Eastern Samar and the patrol base of the Army’s 52nd Infantry Battalion in Oras, Eastern Samar in the run-up to the Dec. 26 anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Last Monday, guerrillas in Negros Occidental released a government militiaman they seized a month earlier during a raid on an Army detachment in Himamaylan town.
Eduardo Raya, a former rebel who switched sides two years ago, was handed over to Catholic Bishop Vicente Navarra in "good physical condition," according to Anecito Buenafe, director of the Social Action Center in Bacolod City.
In a statement, the NPA said Raya was released because he had not committed any abuses. However, he was told not to cooperate with the military and ordered to pay for the firearms he was issued by the rebels but which he surrendered to the government.
Last month, the government and the rebels resumed peace negotiations but failed to agree on a ceasefire or the insurgents’ demand that they be removed from US and European terror lists.
Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero, Armed Forces’ spokesman, told reporters the government was stepping up offensives against NPA rebels "to attain a conducive environment for peaceful and credible elections" on May 10.
"For 35 years they have been pestering our country... They are the stumbling block toward development," he said of the NPA, which will celebrate its 35th anniversary on March 29. — With wire reports