Reds own up to killing of 9 soldiers

BAGUIO CITY — Communist guerrillas have owned up to last Monday’s ambush-killing of nine soldiers in Besang Pass in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur.

Armando Silva, who claimed to be the spokesman of the New People’s Army’s Alfredo Cesar Command, said the attack on the soldiers of the Army’s 50th Infantry Battalion was a punishment for their alleged human rights abuses in the Ilocos Sur towns of Quirino and Cervantes.

The soldiers were on their way to secure Besang Pass for the 60th anniversary rites commemorating the battle there between Japanese forces and American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas when they were waylaid. — Artemio Dumlao