7 soldiers wounded in NPA bomb attack

By FROILAN GALLARDO
Special Correspondent
and NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent .

SEVEN Army soldiers were wounded when suspected New People’s Army rebels detonated a crude bomb during a firefight in Agusan del Sur, on Tuesday.

Lt. Tere Ingente, spokesperson of the Army 4th Infantry Division, said the soldiers belong to 23rd Infantry Battalion who were engaged in a firefight with the rebels in Sitio Afga, Barangay Lower Olave, Buenavista town, Agusan del Norte.

“Our troops were maneuvering towards the rebels when they exploded an IED (improvised explosive device),” Ingente said.

Ingente said the soldiers were immediately evacuated to Butuan City for medical treatment.

The military said the rebel group was led by a woman, a certain Yolly, who heads the Guerrilla Front Committee 4A of the NPA’s northcentral Mindanao regional command.

Ingente said soldiers found seven SIM cards, two memory cards with photos and video recordings, a M16 magazine with 18 bullets, NPA documents, and a solar panel.

Lt. Col. Francisco Molina Jr., commander of the 23rd IB, said rebels violated the international humanitarian law when they used a landmine against soldiers.

“Incidents like this will not shake our will to fight. In fact, it will push our troops to exert more effort,” Molina said.

Maj. Gen. Ronald Villanueva, 4th Infantry Division commander, said the attack was an “act of terrorism.”

Villanueva said he was saddened because the NPA attacks were carried out after the signing of the implementing rules and regulations of the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (Eclip).

The Eclip is a government program to help in the reintegration of former rebels.

“Since the start of our campaign, we have been encouraging members of the NPA to go back to the folds of the law and be active partners of their communities,” Villanueva said.

The incident came a day after Army soldiers killed an NPA rebel during a one-hour gunfight in another village in Buenavista town.

Ingente identified the dead rebel as Rex Hangadorn, 23 years old, a member of Manobo tribe.

She said troops recovered from Hangadorn a M14 rifle, ammunition and four mobile phones.

Fighting between the government and the communist rebels intensified in the last few months.

In a statement released to the media two weeks ago, NPA spokesperson for northcentral Mindanao Malem Mabini said guerrilla units meted the death penalty against the five people after their revolutionary courts found them “guilty” of spying and helping the military.

Mabini said those who were killed resisted the NPA units who came to “arrest” them.