Palawan cop, 2 kids killed in NPA ambush

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna – A policeman and two children aged seven and 13 were killed while two others were wounded when armed men believed to be New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas waylaid them in Taytay, Palawan Thursday afternoon, police said.

Chief Superintendent Napoleon Cachuela, Region 4-B police director, identified the fatalities as PO3 Saturnino Lazo, assigned to the 413rd Provincial Mobile Group, and sisters Jennifer Cortes, 13, and An-an Cortes, seven.

Wounded were the Corteses’ mother, Nilda, and PO1 Walter Gapuz. They are now confined at the Palawan Adventist Hospital.

Cachuela said the Taytay police got a report at about 3:30 p.m. that a motorcycle was abandoned in Barangay Calauag.

A four-man police team was dispatched to the village and found the motorcycle. On their way back, the Corteses hitched a ride, but they were ambushed a few meters away from the spot where the lawmen located the abandoned motorcycle.

Cachuela said the four policemen shot it out with the ambushers, numbering from 15 to 20, for a few minutes, resulting in the deaths of Lazo and the Cortes siblings.

The two colleagues of Lazo and Gapuz, identified as PO2s Johniver Abanto and Edgardo Sanchez, later managed to seek help from the Marine Battalion Landing Team stationed in Taytay.

But the rebels were already gone when the government troops went to the ambush scene, Cachuela said.

“This is a pure human rights violation,” said Cachuela, noting that the rebels’ “terrorist action” killed innocent civilians.

The police and military are jointly pursuing the NPA ambushers. – With Ed Amoroso