2 ranking NPAs killed in Bukidnon encounter

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Soldiers shot dead two long wanted officials of the New People’s Army in an encounter in Barangay Iba in Cabanglasan, Bukidnon on Monday, March 10.

The slain Alfredo Sinda Banawan and Joen Hermo Sagula are officials of the NPA’s self-styled North Central Mindanao Regional Committee, whose leaders are facing high-profile criminal cases pending in different courts in Mindanao’s adjoining Regions 10, 11 and 13.

Banawan and Sagula were also both wanted for extortion, arson, multiple murder and drug trafficking cases separately filed against them by local executives, leaders of indigenous tribes in Bukidnon and different units of the Police Regional Office-10.  

In a report released to media outfits on Thursday, March 13, the Army’s 403rd Infantry Brigade stated that the firefight in Sitio Kalubog in Barangay Iba erupted when Banawan, Sagula and their companions attacked the members of the 1st Special Forces Battalion dispatched to check on reports by villagers about their presence in the area.

Residents of Barangay Iba had reported to local executives in Cabanglasan and officials of units of the 403rd Infantry Brigade in Bukidnon that some 20 NPAs, among them Banawan and Sagula, were in Sitio Kalubog, collecting from them money and rice at gunpoint.

Companions of Banawan and Sagula scampered away when they sensed that Army Special Forces combatants were about to surround their location, leaving their cadavers behind.

The 403rd Infantry Brigade had also reported that soldiers found four assault rifles, improvised explosive devices and seven mobile phones scattered in the scene of the deadly Army-NPA clash.