Another cop trainee in NPA ambush dies

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines – The New People’s Army (NPA) ambush of police trainees on their morning jogging in Tadian, Mt. Province last June 28 claimed a second fatality yesterday.

PO1 Junete Ngalawen died in a hospital in Bontoc, Mt. Province at noon yesterday, as residents, numbering some 3,000, staged a rally to condemn the ambuscade.

Another police trainee, PO1 Dexter Balagbag, died on the spot during the ambush.

Gov. Leonard Mayaen said eight other police trainees are still confined in the hospital. They and Ngalawen were earlier awarded medals for bravery.

Ninety-five trainees, including 70 women, all belonging to the Regional Public Safety Battalion, were jogging as part of their daily training regimen when NPA rebels fired at them. They were unarmed and in athletic attire.

Mayaen, who led yesterday’s indignation rally, said, “Contrary to the claim of leftist groups that the people of Mt. Province are undertaking a petition campaign for a military pullout here, it is the communists that we wanted to leave instead.”

The rallyists were composed of students, local and village officials, local government workers and ordinary folk who gathered at the provincial plaza in the Bontoc capital.

Bearing anti-communist placards, the participants first assembled at the Mt. Province General Comprehensive High School grounds, then paraded around the town center and converged at the provincial plaza for the program.

“I’m sure we are all against the NPA, otherwise we will maintain that idea that Mt. Province is an NPA-infested province,” Mayaen said.

Col. Loreto Magundayao, chief of the civilian-military operations battalion of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division based in Isabela, said Mayor Anthony Wooden of Tadian town where the ambush took place, also led the rally.

The Commission on Human Rights  is set to investigate the NPA attack. – With Rhodina Villanueva, Artemio Dumlao, Charlie Lagasca