Military operations vs NPA displace 100 Ecija families

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines  – Some 100 families in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija are reportedly starving in evacuation centers where they have sought refuge following military operations against New People’s Army (NPA) rebels two weeks ago.

The reports have prompted the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to a send a lawyer and a special investigator to Barangays Villa Rica and Masbang in Pantabangan town to investigate.

Lawyer Danilo Valdez of CHR-Central Luzon said he expects the findings of the investigating team today.

The evacuees, according to reports, are now starving, as their crops had been harvested by unidentified folk and their livestock slaughtered.

The families were told to move to the evacuation centers after the NPA ambushed last Jan. 31 men of the Army’s 71st Infantry Battalion on board an M35 truck at Kilometer 5 of the national highway in Pantabangan.

The military launched pursuit operations against the ambushers, who killed a soldier and wounded two others.

In a phone interview, Maj. Charlemagne Batayola Jr., spokesman of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division based in Nueva Ecija, admitted that some 100 families have been displaced in the two Pantabangan barangays.

But Batayola said it was the decision of the municipal officials to evacuate the villagers.

He said residents of Villa Rica were brought to a barangay hall, and those of Malbang, to the barangay high school.

Batayola, however, denied that the evacuees are starving. “They have remained abundant in relief goods from the local government. As a matter of fact, some of the Aeta families even prefer to prolong their stay at the evacuation centers because they get free food and other needs,” he said.

Batayola blamed the rebels for destroying the villagers’ farms.