NPAs gun down militiaman, hurt 4 others

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao , Philippines  – New People’s Army guerillas gunned down a militiaman, wounded four others and set on fire several bunkers in a para-military detachment in a daring attack late Friday in Mlang, North Cotabato.

The mayor of Mlang, Joselito Piñol, said the rebels also ransacked the armory of the detachment and took several firearms, including M-16 and M-14 assault rifles and vintage World War II carbines and assorted ammunition before they escaped toward a nearby hinterland.

The NPAs arrived at Barangay Luz in Mlang on board two Isuzu Elf trucks, surrounded a roadside detachment there, and, without warning, opened fire, provoking gunfight with militiamen on duty.

A militiaman named Rex Alvarez was killed instantly in the initial volley of fire.

Two companions of Alvarez, Wilfredo Mendoza and Ronaldo Castillon, were wounded in the ensuing firefight.

The militiamen were forced to abandon their detachment and repositioned themselves in different spots after sensing that the rebels have breached their security perimeter and have started closing in.

Caught in crossfire

Two civilians caught in the crossfire, Tiborcio Pastera and Leonardo Mara-Mara, who sustained bullet wounds in different parts of their bodies, were rushed by responding policemen and civilian volunteers to a nearby hospital.

The rebels hastily fled after they set on fire all bunkers inside the roadside detachment.

The NPA’s attack of a detachment in Mlang was the second incident in the province involving communist rebels in three days.

NPA guerillas burned two days before, two vehicles of the local government unit of Magpet, North Cotabato, one of which is assigned to the town’s vice mayor who has reportedly ignored a demand by the NPAs to shell out money in exchange for a free access to NPA territories in the area.

Inspector Luis Pederio, chief of the Magpet municipal police, said Vice Mayor Florentino Villasor was already on his way to the town proper from a peace dialogue with villagers in Barangay Basak when the NPAs flagged them down, herded them at one side of the road, and set their vehicles on fire using kerosene and dried coconut leaves.

“Since the NPAs were heavily armed, the group of Vice Mayor Villasor did not resist and just looked at them burn the two vehicles, an Isuzu Trooper and a Toyota Hi-lux pick-up truck,” Pederio said.

The rebels divested the vice mayor and his staff of their wrist watches, mobile phones and money, according to Pederio.

Villasor and the re-electionist mayor of Magpet, Efren Piñol, are both known for their hardline position against the NPAs’ demand for politicians to pay “permits to campaign” in areas where there are communist rebels.    – With Alexis Romero