NPAs own up to raid on Davao security agency

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The New People’s Army (NPA) has owned up to the raid on the armory of a security agency in Tagum City, Davao del Norte and even the kidnapping of six people as they fled the area Monday night.

In a statement Tuesday night, Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesman of the NPA’s Southern Mindanao Operations Command/Merardo Arce Command, said the raid on the Dasia Security Agency was a “punitive action” against its owners, the Escandor family, “for various land-grabbing offenses against the Matigsalogs in Barangay Salumanay and Sitio Marahan in Marilog district and versus the Ubo lumads in Baracatan, Toril district, all in Davao City.”

Sanchez said they carted away eight high-powered guns from the security agency’s armory.

Chief Superintendent Jaime Morente, Southern Mindanao police director, said at least 15 rebels wearing police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency uniforms, swooped down on the security agency’s branch at Orange Valley Subdivision in Barangay South, Tagum City at around 8:30 p.m. Monday. 

The rebels arrived on board two passenger vans, a white pick-up and a black Toyota Fortuner.

Glen Escandor, proprietor of the Dasia Security Agency, said the rebels pretended to be serving a search warrant to the personnel of the security agency. 

As they fled, the insurgents seized Dasia Tagum branch manager Terencio Laplana, 56, his wife Concepcion, 47, and 10-year-old daughter Honey; mechanic Rene Aquilino, 24; and security guards Ryan Hapitan, 24, and Armando Niones Jr., 25, but released them Tuesday afternoon.

The rebels also commandeered three armored vehicles of the security agency, but these were later recovered in a hinterland area in Maco, Compostela Valley.

In Makilala, North Cotabato, meanwhile, communist rebels set free on Tuesday six drivers of air-conditioned passenger vehicles they had commandeered and used in a spate of attacks in Tagum City.

The vehicles were reportedly “hired” by the rebels on the pretext that foreign tourists were to use them for sightseeing trips in North Cotabato.

Senior Inspector Joyce Birrey, Makilala police chief, said one of the six drivers was made to believe that tourists were waiting for them at a zipline facility in Barangay New Israel, several kilometers southwest of the town proper.

Birrey identified the kidnapped drivers as Armando Wamil, Orbil Bacarro, Reynaldo Pedere, Hashim Moalid, Schimdt Apat, and Danilo Tamayo.

The guerrillas reportedly set them free after sensing that responding policemen and combatants of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion had started to close in on them.– With John Unson