By BEN SERRANO
Correspondent
SURIGAO City–Skirmishes between government troops and the New People’s Army have frustrated attempts by Maoist rebels to release a soldier whom the group captured Jan. 29, this year.
Insp. Juan Belarmino, Alegria, Surigao del Norte police chief, said there was an armed encounter in Barangay Budlingin this March 9 that lasted for almost 30 minutes.
Belarmino said a soldier was killed and another one was wounded when about 50 New People’s Army rebels attacked government troops.
He declined to identify the slain and wounded soldiers.
A military report showed that there were damages to properties of civilians in the area as a result of the armed encounter.
Lt. Col. Rico Amaro, commander of the Army’s 30th Infantry Battalion, said the rebels were from the NPA-Northereastern Mindanao Regional Committee’s Sandatahang Pampropaganda-Lumad, Guerrilla Front 16 under one “Ka Ricky.”
Amaro said it was the same group that captured Pfc. Erwin Salan in the same village.
“Barangay Budlingin is the center of IP communities in Alegria, Surigao del Norte where most of the NPA recruits come from,” said Amaro.
Two weeks prior to the skirmish, Belarmino said a similar armed confrontation took place in the same village. He said two people were killed–a rebel and a man from the government forces.
Ka Ariel Montero, in a press statement, said they went to Budlingin with the intention of releasing Salan.
Montero said his group has asked for a brief ceasefire so that they could free Salan but Amaro’s men would not give them the leeway.
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