Troops overrun NPA camp, seize explosives

CAMP MELCHOR DELA CRUZ, Gamu, Isabela – The Arroyo administration’s goal of dismantling the decades-old communist insurgency by 2010 gained more grounds as Army troops recovered another rebel camp here over the weekend, reports showed yesterday.

Major Gen. Melchor Dilodilo, chief of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division based here, said that their troops from the 45th Infantry Battalion and 52nd Military Intelligence Group led by Maj. Francis Sibal, came across the New People’s Army camp, which also serves as ordnance and explosives factory, along the so-called Digusi-Diwagao Complex, a remote mountain area in San Mariano town here Sunday morning.

Citing field reports from 45th IB chief Lt. Col. Generoso Ponio, the Army here said the discovery of the area, one of the remaining camps of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ Cagayan Valley regional party committee, also resulted to the recovery of materials in making explosive and other paraphernalia.

The discovered items included 23 ready-to-use land mines, 31 PVC pipe bombs, materials for blasting caps, detonation cords, time fuses, one-fourth pound of TNT, a blasting machine, lacquer paint, bolt cutter, hummer, three manual grinders and 13 mm press.

Dilodilo said that the discovery of the camp, consists of at least five huts, came through with the assistance of the civilians.

“This clearly it shows that the communist rebels and their mass base support is swiftly waning because the civilians now understand the threats of (communism) to a democratic society,” he said.

Since last year, the Army’s 5th ID, which operates in Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and Cordillera regions, was able to dismantle at least four major camps, making the communist armed strength in the three North-Luzon regions “almost imaginary,” the Army said.