Soldiers discover abandoned NPA camp

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Soldiers found the other day an abandoned camp of the New People’s Army in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat, where NPAs held captive for almost three years a decorated Marine intelligence officer they captured while in a covert mission near the area.

Lt. Col. Franklin Del Prado, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the NPAs occupying the guerilla camp in Bgy. Datal Blao, a hinterland area in Columbio, could have been driven away by the military’s continuing operation against communist rebels in the surroundings of the municipality.

Del Prado said the guerilla camp has three big tents, running trenches and retreat path leading to a hinterland land near the border of Sultan Kudarat and Davao Del Sur.

Local officials said the NPAs held captive in the camp Marine Sgt. Jeremiah Rosete, an agent of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces (ISAFP), who was captured by rebels in Columbio in 2002 while gathering vital information on activities of communist guerillas there.

Rosete, along with three local ISAFP informants, were summarily executed by their captors after about two years in captivity. Their remains were recovered jointly by the police and the military early this year from a shallow grave in a secluded spot also in the same town.

Combatants of the Army’s 602 and 604th Brigades have been running after NPAs in Columbio for two weeks now in an apparent bid to flush them out of the area.

Four NPAs have been captured alive by soldiers in Bgy. Datal Blao last week, now undergoing tactical interrogation to determine from them the whereabouts of their companions. — Johnn Unson