NPA attacks medical outreach in N. Cotabato

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Marauding New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas on Thursday fired grenade projectiles at the venue of a military medical outreach mission in Magpet town to forestall the activity intended to serve hundreds of impoverished lumad families.

The attack, however, did not stop members of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion from serving villagers in the hinterlands in Balete District in east of Magpet.

Lt. Col. Noli Vinluan, commanding officer of the 57th IB, said the NPAs operating in Magpet are opposed to the military’s humanitarian projects benefiting poor villagers they subject to forced taxation.

Vinluan said the explosive projectiles the NPAs fired from a distance landed on a basketball court near a barangay hall.

No one was hurt in the explosions, Vinluan said.  

“They do not want our presence in the area,” Vinluan said.

The NPAs in Magpet and nearby towns have perpetrated more than a dozen roadside bombings the past months, meant to intimidate peasant communities and members of the local business community to force them in paying “protection money” on a regular basis.