Tension grips Misor over fresh clashes

By NITZ ARANCON
with BEN SERRANO
Correspondents

TENSION gripped eastern parts of Misamis Oriental as government troops and New People’s Army rebels continued to clash yesterday.

Violence spilled over from Sugbongogon to Salay and the boundary of Talisayan.

Meanwhile in Caraga region, a soldier was wounded in a separate encounter between the military and the NPA in Malimono Surigao del Norte at 9:30 am yesterday, the military said.

As soldiers and rebels clashed in Misamis Oriental, classes were suspended in barangays Matampa and Guinabalan in Salay town. Hunders of elementary graders were sent home.

Misamis Oriental Gov. Yevgeny Vincente Emano confirmed that troops from the Army’s 58th Infantry Battalion and members of the NPA’s Guerrilla  Front 4B Committee exchanged firepower in the outlying villages of Sugbongcogon and Salay as early as 6:45 am yesterday.

A day earlier, a soldier was killed as renewed fighting between the military and the NPA in Sugbongcogon, confirmed Capt. Joe Patrick Martinez, spokesperson of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division.

The capitol said the soldiers and rebels first clashed in Barangay Kaulayanan in Sugbongcogon at around 9:30 am on Monday. It said the slain soldier held the rank of private first class.

As of 7 am yesterday, all teachers in the area were advised by a councilor to leave their schools, said capitol spokesperson Nicole Managbanag. She identified the official as Edison Aragua.

The capitol has not documented any evacuation at presstime.

Martinez withheld the name of the soldier pending notification of the members of his family.

He said the clashes occurred two days after the military launched pursuit operations against the perpetrators of the attack at a hydroelectric plant project site in Bukidnon on Saturday.

Martinez said about 15 armed NPA members raided the compound of the proposed Pulanai Hydroelectric Plant in Lumbayao, an outskirt village of Lumbayao in Valencia, Bukidnon.

The rebels seized the mobile phones of the plant personnel and then planted improvised explosives around the plant site which a military ordnance team dug out.

The Monday encounter in Misamis Oriental was the first since the peace talks with the government and communist peace panel scuttled last month.

Last week, armed NPA rebels set up a roadblock on a section of the highway in Medina town, and then fled after threatening a barangay chairman and searching vehicles.

In Barangay Tinago, Malimono town in Surigao del Norte, government troops from the 30th Infantry Battalion and rebels exchanged firepower yesterday morning.

Lt. Col. Rico  Amaro, 30th IB commander, said  the soldiers were on patrol because villagers complained of having been harassed by rebels when they chanced upon the NPA group.

Joaquin Jacinto, spokesman of the NPA in the area, accused the military of fabricating the report, denying that there was an encounter in the area.

“Our men are not in Malimono. Another (military) drama?” Jacinto asked rhetorically.

But the military maintained that an encounter took place in Malimono, alleging that the NPA even exploded a crude bomb that damaged civilian property. Amaro said the explosion hurt a soldier whose name he withheld. (with reports from pna)