Troops clash with NPA guerillas in NCotabato town

NORTH COTABATO - Soldiers and communist rebels clashed in Makilala town Wednesday, sending close to 300 villagers fleeing for their lives.

The hostilities in Barangay Tambis, a hinterland area in Makilala, erupted when about a hundred New People’s Army guerrillas attempted to intrude into a farming enclave to collect “revolutionary taxes” from local folks.

Patrolling combatants of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion were prompt to block the rebel intrusion, sparking a two-hour running firefight. 

Eddie Buenacosa, a senior member of the Makilala disaster risk reduction and management council, said the municipal government is now attending to the needs of the evacuees.

The evacuees from Barangay Tambis are now sheltered in makeshift relief sites and houses of relatives in nearby villages.

1Lt. Nash Sema, civil military relations officer of the 57th IB, said the group that the soldiers encountered in Barangay Tambis were the same rebels that killed nine government combatants in an ambush last October in Tulunan town, also in the province.

The slain troopers were on their way to a secluded area in Tulunan to deliver the cash allowances of local members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit when they were attacked.

A soldier was wounded in last Wednesday’s hostilities in Barangay Tambis, according to Sema.

Sema declined to identify the wounded soldier pending notification of his family.